The Last of Us Novelisation
by BenRG
Summary: A mostly 'vanilla' narrative treatment of the The Last of Us story. A confession: I'm going to step off canon eventually and in a big way. Don't worry, I'm not going to introduce a super-OC self-insert that will save the day or be a romantic interest. I just wanted to explore one major change that could change the story in some ways. Updated weekly until my buffer runs out.
1. Prologue - Hometown

**The Last of Us**

Based on the story by Neil Drukmann

 **Disclaimer**

 _The Last of Us_ was written for Naughty Dog on behalf of Sony Computer Entertainment by Neil Drukmann and Bruce Straley. It is a trademark property of Sony Computer Entertainment. This is a not-for-profit fan-work for free distribution through the world-wide web. No infringement of trademark or copyright is intended.

 **Author's Notes**

I haven't seen a 'decent' straight novelisation of the game story so far and it was this that led me to start work on this. However, as I continued, I decided that, whilst I will be avoiding OCs, I wasn't content to just turn Neil Drukmann's fine story into a narrative story form. There was one change about which I had lots of ideas. With encouragement of a few other fans of the game, I decided to take this story in this new direction. I hope that I won't be changing any of the key points and themes but I really, really wanted to make this change.

You'll see what I mean in time.

Censor – M – Violence, profanity and description of death and disease

 **Prologue – Hometown**

Awoken by the sound of her father, Joel, nearly _slamming_ the front door, Sarah Miller stretched and yawned in a way that she'd forever deny was cute. She tried to blink the fatigue out of her mind as her dad stormed across the living room, talking urgently on his cell phone.

"Tommy, I… Tommy… Tommy, _listen to me_! He is the _contractor_ , okay? I can't lose this job!" There was a pause as Joel's brother replied. "I understand. Look, let's talk about this in the morning, okay? We'll talk about it in the morning, I mean it. Alright… goodnight."

Joel terminated the call and tossed his cell onto a side table near the kitchen island before dragging himself towards the couch and his daughter. Sarah drew her legs up underneath her and looked up at her father, her cornflower blue eyes shining with mischief. "Scoot," he advised his daughter, gesturing. The girl shifted to give her father room to sit down on the couch. Joel turned on the TV and sat glaring at the sports news, his eyes unseeing.

"So, I'm thinking it was a fun day at work, huh?"

Joel briefly considered trying to handle Sarah's sass but he decided that he really didn't feel anywhere near human enough tonight. He decided to focus on something a little easier to handle than his current employer loudly declaring that it was his brother or his job. "What are you doing up? It's late!"

Sarah gasped and sprang upright, staring at the clock over the couch. "Oh crud! What time is it?"

"It's way past your bedtime is what it is!"

The twelve-year-old girl smiled at her father in a cocky way. "But it's still today!"

"Honey, please not right now. I do not have the energy for this!" Ignoring her father's complaint, Sarah dived under the couch and emerged with a gift-wrapped box. She presented it to her father with a broad smile. "What's this?"

"Your birthday… or it will be for the next half-hour or somethin'!" Joel opened the box and his jaw hung open in an undignified way. Looking at him was a very, very nice looking high-end analogue wristwatch. "You're always complainin' about your busted watch, so… So, I figured… You like it?"

Joel strapped the watch on and frowned at its face in confusion. "Honey, this is…" He put his ear to the face of the watch.

Sarah's face crinkled with concern as she took in her father's expression. "What?"

"This is nice but… I… I think it's stuck! It's not…"

Sarah gasped in dismay. She grabbed her father's hand and yanked it over to her. "WHAT? No, no, no, no! That can't be!" Sarah looked at the steadily advancing second hand and all the other indications that the watch was working normally. "Oh, 'ha, ha'!" she growled at her maliciously-grinning father.

"Honey, this is great but where did you get the money for this?"

Sarah decided that one joke deserved another. She arranged herself casually against the arm of the couch and shot her father a haughty look. "Drugs; I'm a major dealer in hard-core drugs."

"Oh, good," Joel responded seriously, his eyebrow quirked. "You can start helpin' out with the mortgage then!"

"Pfft! Yeah, you wish!"

For all her determination to wish her father a happy birthday, Sarah _was_ only twelve years old. Half an hour later, she was fast asleep. Joel turned off the TV and gently gathered her into his arms.

Truth be told, she was pretty much his life. When they placed that tiny baby into 17-year-old Joel Miller's arms, even though he knew it was going to change his life forever, he knew that he'd spend the rest of his life loving this girl and making sure that she wanted for nothing. He didn't care that Amanda wanted nothing to do with her and that by insisting on caring for her he'd probably ruined his first serious relationship and his plans for the future. He had given up his dreams and had instead become a blue-collar construction worker. He'd gone through hardship and worries for her. What is more… _he didn't regret one moment of it._

Joel lowered Sarah onto her bed and dropped a gentle kiss onto her forehead. "Goodnight, Baby Girl."

* * *

 _4:13am CT, September 27, 2013_

Sarah was roused from a deep sleep by the 'phone terminal on her bedside table ringing. Through her stupor, she somehow managed to lift up the receiver and hold it to her ear. "H… Hello?"

" _Sarah?_ " It was Tommy, her father's younger brother.

"U… Uncle Tommy?"

" _Sarah, honey, Ah need to talk to your daddy right now! There's somethin'…_ " Then, suddenly, the line went dead, only a series of rapid-fire clicks could be heard.

"Uncle Tommy? Hello?" Sarah tried hanging up and opening the line again, hoping to call her uncle back but there was no dial tone. "The 'phone's dead! What's happenin'?"

Woozily, the girl staggered to her feet. As her mind struggled to awaken, she circled her bedroom, her eyes falling briefly on the 'Dawn of the Wolf' poster on the wall. She swore again that she'd get her dad to take her to see that film, no matter how much he complained about 'chick flicks', whatever that was supposed to mean. She also noticed the birthday card that she'd bought her father but she'd forgotten to give him.

' _Let's see… You're never around, you hate the music I'm into, you probably despise the movies I like and yet somehow you still manage to be the best dad every year. How do you do that?_ '

Sarah couldn't help giggle. She was _proud_ of that little dedication. She hoped he would appreciate it when she gave it to him tomorrow. Sarah rubbed her eyes woozily. Priorities: Right now, she had to tell her dad to call Uncle Tommy.

Sarah didn't currently feel even remotely awake or aware enough to do anything. She went into the bathroom to splash cold water on her face. Whilst in there, she noticed that today's… well, really _yesterday's_ paper was sitting on top of the basin counter. She briefly looked at the front page headline, talking about some kind of disease running around; apparently spread by contaminated shipments of fruit. Sarah had been aware of the fact that faces had been disappearing from school and that fresh produce had suddenly gone off the menu in the cafeteria. However, she hadn't really understood that this was a _big thing_! According to the article, there had been hundreds of product recalls and thousands were sick across the country! Wow! She was going on a strict pizza and soda diet from now on!

The girl stepped back out into the hall and called out for her father. There was no reply. She could see the light on in his bedroom and the sound of his TV set in there on. She entered and saw that he wasn't around. The TV was playing some report about a fire in town somewhere.

Sarah turned to the screen and frowned in confusion; the reporter didn't seem to be talking about a fire: " _It appears that what we initially reported as riots seem to be somehow connected to the nationwide pandemic._ "

 _Pandemic?!_ Sarah wasn't familiar with that word but it sounded enough like a word she did know – epidemic – to sound bad. She frowned at the screen and suddenly her tired brain was hit with a surge of recognition. "Wait! That's nearby!"

" _We've received reports that victims afflicted with the infection show signs of increased aggression and…_ "

Suddenly, there was confusion behind the reporter. A riot cop strode towards the camera, gesturing wildly. " _There's a gas leak! Hey! Move!_ "

" _There seems to be some commotion coming from beh…_ "

" _Lady, get the hell out of here right…!_ " Then the picture turned to static. Sarah jumped as she heard a loud explosion, not from the TV set but _outside the house_! Sarah jumped to the window and saw an orange-red fireball climbing into the night sky. Suddenly, she realised there was _lots_ of fire out there. All across this outer suburb of Austin, Texas, there were patches of fire and where there wasn't fire, the street lights seemed to be out in wide swathes of the city. Sarah's sense of sudden disorientation and dislocation paralysed her and she barely noticed as the TV anchor-man's worried apology for the 'temporary loss of our live report' suddenly was cut off mid-word.

Sarah turned and saw only static on the screen. She scrabbled for the remote and, ignoring one of her father's cardinal TV rules (' _Thou shalt not change the channel your old man is watching_ '), she began frantically changing channels. The local live news channels were all showing static. The national 24-hour news networks were showing a logo of the Presidential seal and the caption 'Emergency Broadcast System – Stand By' or 'technical difficulties' cards. Some of the entertainment channels that were showing pre-recorded shows were still on the air but others were dead, showing only test cards or just static.

Sarah felt a fear as deep as she'd ever known. For her… for _any_ child… she was suddenly confronting her deepest fear – a world gone mad and full of danger… and her father was _nowhere to be found_. "Dad…? Dad! _Daddy, where are you?_ "

Sarah somehow didn't break her neck running down the stairs. Outside a convoy of police cars and ambulances screamed past the house, their lights flashing and sirens blaring. Was that _gunfire_?

In the suddenly horrible, alien and overtly threatening darkness of the living room, she was startled by a completely mundane sound – the SMS text message alert from her father's cell-phone. Sarah dashed over to this tiny island of sanity in a dissolving world and looked at a long stretch of text messages on the screen from Uncle Tommy. The last one, to her relief, indicated that he was on the way. Where was her father?

Suddenly, there was a noise from the room her father used as an office for his handyman business. Sarah whirled to see her father stagger through the patio doors. In the moonlit near-darkness, it was difficult to tell but he looked rather _pale_. He slammed and locked the patio doors and snapped on the light on his desk. Sarah ran over to her father. "Daddy! There you are!"

Joel nearly jumped out of her skin and whirled to face Sarah. When he identified her, he dragged her into a hard hug. "Sarah! Honey, are you okay? Has anyone come in here?"

Sarah tried to focus her mind beyond her fear, the clear terror on her father's face not making it any easier. Neither was the frantic barking of their neighbours' dog. "N… No! Who would come in…?" Sarah's eyes opened a bit wider as her father pulled out of the bottom desk drawer the box that he had strictly ordered her never, ever to touch, no matter how curious she got.

Joel pulled out his 357-Magnum Taurus-66. He slid six cartridges into their places and snapped the revolver's cylinder back into the body of the gun. He pulled out the half-full box of revolver ammo (maybe another 12 rounds) and slid it into his pocket. "Sarah, listen to me, Baby Girl. Do not go near any of the doors or windows. Just… just stand behind me, okay?"

Sarah swallowed her terror. "Daddy, you're… you're freakin' me out here! What's goin' on?"

"It's the Coopers," Joel jerked his chin in the direction of their neighbours' house. The man's eyes were haunted; the eyes of a man who'd seen something that he didn't want to remember. "I… I think that they're sick!"

Sarah frowned, remembering the newspaper article. "What kind of sick…?"

At that point, there was a tremendous crash as something heavy hit the patio doors. Both Joel and Sarah stared in horror as their neighbour, Jimmy Cooper, slammed himself bodily against the plate glass time and time again, his face smashed into a bloody mask by the impacts and his eyes an unseeing white tinted with a _glowing gold_. "Jesus, Jimmy!" Joel shouted. He grabbed Sarah and yanked her back a few paces, pushing her behind him.

Suddenly, the plate glass doors exploded inwards and a bloody Jimmy staggered into the room, making half-mad slavering noises and shrieks. The normally mild-mannered and kind man looked up at Joel, his mouth open in a desperate and hungry gaping grimace. "Jimmy, stay back!" Joel shouted over Sarah's terrified cries and Jimmy's mad babbling and wails, half-insane with terror himself. Jimmy showed no indication of any understanding not even of the shaking gun pointed at him. Instead, he gathered his legs underneath him, ready to lunge. "Jimmy! I AM _WARNING YOU_ …!"

With no indication of comprehension, Jimmy launched himself towards the Millers. More on instinct than any real conscious choice, Joel's finger squeezed the trigger and the high-power pistol round slammed into Jimmy's chest, exploding out of the back in a shower of red. The man staggered back two paces and the, despite the fact that he'd had a lung blown out, righted himself and lunged forwards again. Joel aimed high this time and this time squeezed the trigger with more purpose, although his eyes were closed and his voice was muttering a prayer for forgiveness.

The back of Jimmy Cooper's head blew off and the man's corpse dropped backwards to the ground, thrashing like a beheaded chicken for a few seconds before falling still.

Horror had shut down Sarah's brain. All she could do was gasp out " _You shot him! You shot him!_ " over and over again.

"Sarah!" Joel shook the girl, trying to break her out of her loop.

"I… I only saw him this mornin'…!"

"Listen to me! There is something bad going on. We have _got_ to get out of here. Do you understand me?" Joel gave Sarah a little shake and the girl's eyes were focussed on him again. "Do you…?"

"Y… yeah!" Sarah was finally able gasp out.

Joel pushed Sarah towards the front door as a set of high-beams suddenly shone through the front windows. Joel, in the middle of reloading his revolver, identified the pick-up immediately and sighed in relief. "Tommy…!"

Joel and Sarah bolted out of their house as Tommy jumped out of his pick-up, terrified and angry at the same time. "Where the hell have you been? I tried to call you a dozen times! Have you _any idea_ what's goin' on out there?"

Joel snapped the revolver cylinder closed. "I've got some notion." He yanked open the pick-up's rear door and turned to Sarah. "Come on, Baby Girl, let's get you in there!"

"Holy shit! You've got _blood_ all over you!" Tommy took a step back from his brother in horror.

Joel didn't have time to think, let alone process the fact that he'd just killed a man. "This ain't mine," he reassured his brother. "Let's just get out of here!"

* * *

"They're saying that half the people in the city have lost their minds!" Tommy was babbling, terrified.

Joel was trying to keep it together, if only for Sarah's sake. Tommy wasn't making it any easier. "Tommy, _later_ ; just keep us movin'."

"According to the news, it's some kind of parasite or somethin'!" Tommy looked at his blood-splattered big brother and narrowed his eyes in worry. "Are you plannin' on telling me what the hell happened to you?" His big brother's expression indicated that it was a conversation that he didn't intend having any time soon. Tommy looked into the rear-view mirror at a very small, vulnerable and terrified blonde girl strapped into the rear seats, tears streaming down her expressionless face. "Sarah, honey? How'ya holdin' up?"

"I… I'm fine. Can we hear what's on the radio?"

"Good idea!" Tommy responded with a fake-as-hell smile before turning on the radio. There was only static. He frowned as he began to cycle through the radio's pre-set stations. Nothing but dead air on any of them!

Joel growled. "Just peachy! No cell service; no radio. Looks like we're doin' great!"

Tommy snorted in annoyance. "Minute ago, the newsmen couldn't shut up!"

"They say where to go?"

Tommy tried to rally his rattled wits as they accelerated down the road out of his brother's home suburb. "They said… uh… Oh yeah, the Army's been called out. They're puttin' up roadblocks on the highway. Travis County's sealed off; no gettin' in or out!"

Joel nodded. "That means we need to get the hell out before they decide to do the same here. Take Seventy-one."

"That's where I'm headed!"

The family raced down the darkened road for a minute or so, passed at regular intervals by police cars, ambulances and fire trucks.

"Have they said how many are dead?" Sarah's voice was quiet and desperate.

If Tommy were a little less rattled himself, he would have probably thought twice before answering. As it was… "Probably a lot; there was word that they found one family all mangled up in their house…"

" _Tommy_!" Tommy looked at Joel and understood the mute warning on his brother's face. The road ahead was blocked by police cruisers. Tommy turned off onto a dirt-track, hoping to get around the blockage

Joel shook his head. "Jesus Christ, how did this happen?"

"They got no clue! We ain't the only ones, though! At first they were saying it was just the South. Now they're going on about the East Coast, the West Coast... _Holy hell_!" Tommy's exposition was cut off by the sight of a blazing homestead to their right. "That's… that's Louis's farm!" The three Millers gaped at the burning house for a moment, thinking of the ill-tempered old widower with a grudge against the whole planet who had lived there. "I hope that son-of-a-bitch got out alright!"

"I'm sure he did," Joel said, trying to sound like he meant it.

* * *

The pick-up turned onto a parallel road through the centre of the county and to a highway out of town. However, it quickly became clear that they were heading further and further into trouble. Tommy and Joel got into a fierce argument about driving past a family who had been yelling for help. Joel clearly was firmly of the opinion that they had to look to their own problems and let others sort things out for themselves. Tommy clearly wasn't as hard hearted. Both men were not as aware as they should have been of poor Sarah, who was drifting off deeper into a kind of shock as the world she knew collapsed around her into a waking nightmare.

Then, suddenly, things got a lot worse. The pick-up got trapped in a traffic jam through the centre of town right next to the hospital. At that point, they got a ringside seat of just what this 'parasite' could do. Two people, screeching like banshees, ran out of the hospital, ripped open a door of the car in front of them and yanked the driver out before beginning to feast on the screaming man in a mad cannibalistic ecstasy. The second looked into the car and leapt into the car's interior, leading with her teeth, and tore out the throat of the woman in the passenger seat. A third man lunged for the Millers' pick-up and only the fact that Tommy was already turning around and accelerating stopped the berserk glowing-eyed creature from smashing its way in.

Tommy steered into town but the streets were borderline-impassable with crashed vehicles and burning, collapsing buildings. Cars were screaming out of side roads at full speed and colliding with buildings or other vehicles before exploding into flames. Everything was anarchy and people were running in hysterical panic trying to find some kind of sanctuary. Joel and Tommy were screaming at each other, Joel insisting the Tommy move the truck _now_ and Tommy refusing to contemplate running over the fleeing pedestrians.

Joel pointed and shouted at his brother. The pick-up somehow got through a gap in the crowd by a jack-knifed bus and Joel was just starting to believe that they'd make it when they were T-boned by an out-of-control car that shot out of a side street like a missile.

* * *

Joel came awake in response to Sarah's desperate pleas, lying on his side and looking out through the shattered but still-in-place windshield at the car that just hit them. Grotesquely, the woman who had been sitting in the passenger seat was frantically trying to eat the corpse of the driver.

The big man shook his head frantically, trying to get his mind working again. He kicked out the windshield and dragged himself upright. At that moment, another frantic, foaming and maddened person threw himself at him, bloody teeth snapping at Joel's throat. Joel somehow held him back for a moment before Tommy suddenly broke a wooden axe-handle over the back of the guy's head, sending him down – dead or unconscious neither Miller brother cared.

Sarah staggered out of the overturned pick up and winced in pain as she tried to put weight on her left leg. "It's… it's my ankle," she sobbed.

Tommy was looking around fearfully. "Joel, we got no choice but to run!"

Joel thought frantically for a moment before handing Tommy his revolver. "You keep us safe! Come on, Baby Girl!" He swung Sarah up into his arms and the two began jogging away from the wrecked vehicle. "Now, you hold on tight, Sarah!"

"Y… yeah! Daddy, I'm scared!"

Joel pushed his daughter's face against his neck so she didn't have to see as two burning men staggered out of blazing building, too far gone even to scream as they were consumed by the out-of-control fire. A third person lunged out of the front of the next building and slammed into someone just ahead of Joel in the fleeing cloud, tearing into their victim with teeth and fingers curled into claws. The screams were indescribable.

A car screamed out of a side road into a gas station and the station exploded, sending debris flying across the street and taking out several refugees instantly. "This way!" Joel hollered, turning the way the out-of-control car had come from. He had to find somewhere safe but _nowhere_ was safe!

"They're… They're on fire!" Sarah wailed.

"Keep your eyes shut, honey!"

At the end of the street was a movie theatre. An out-of-control SUV slammed into it and there was an explosion. Instantly, all the lights in the street went dead – obviously a power-line had been taken out. Joel looked around frantically; behind, he could now hear the screams of the insane cannibals getting closer. He took a left turn and ran down a side alley. Tommy slammed the gate behind them. A few seconds later the first of the monsters hit the gate but they didn't seem to have enough brain left to even deal with the simple slide bolt that Tommy had slid closed.

Tommy gestured to Joel. "There's too many of them! Go!"

Joel turned and, suddenly, another cannibal lunged for him, his eyes white (subtly glowing gold in a way that a strange, calm part of Joel realised wasn't reflected fire) and his gaping mouth drooling in anticipation. Somehow, Joel managed to stick an elbow into the living nightmare's throat and hold it back whilst still keeping a hold of Sarah. A moment later, Tommy smashed a brick into the inhuman mockery of a man's head, making it stagger away. A second blow to the face knocked it back and Tommy pinned it with a foot to the chest. The creature struggled and howled, clawing at Tommy's leg; Tommy levelled the revolver and put a bullet through its head. "It's dead; keep moving!"

"They've torn through the fence!" Sarah yelled. Joel saw the chain-link fence off to one side collapse under the weight of snarling, slavering and howling once-people. He took to his heels and ran down the alley into the rear garden of a bar. He and Tommy ran into the bar proper and Tommy slammed the door shut behind them. Outside, the creatures shrieked their hunger and pounded on the door. It was taking all of Tommy's weight to hold the door closed.

Tommy thought frantically. "Get to the highway!" he commanded. Joel looked at his brother in horror. " _Go_! You got Sarah! I can hold 'em here and then outrun 'em once you've got a head start!"

Joel shot his brother a grateful look and thrust the box of revolver bullets into his free hand. "I _will_ meet you there." It sounded like an order and Tommy couldn't help but smile as he nodded in agreement.

Joel ran out of the bar's front door. Ahead there was a short stretch of scrub separating the town from the distinctive bridge leading to the highway. Sarah was weeping uncontrollably. "We… we can't leave Uncle Tommy!"

"He'll be okay, Baby Girl. Let's move." Joel took to his heels. To his left, another monster-once-person slammed into some other unfortunate but Joel had no way to help and, right now, was so scared and so focussed on getting Sarah to safety that he didn't care to even try. The two refugees passed a crashed paramedic's ambulance. The casualty had pulled himself out of the interior and was dragging himself along the ground, muttering insane gibberish, slavering and making howls of raging hunger.

"They're getting closer, Daddy!" Sarah cried out.

Joel tried to sprint uphill but he could hear two of the monsters… they were EMTs once… closing in on him. He prepared for the impacts of them hitting his back…

There was a roar of automatic rifle-fire and both of Joel's pursuers went down blood spurting from their chests.

Joel looked and saw their saviour, a soldier in the uniform of the Texas National Guard, wearing a gas mask and pointing an assault rifle equipped with an under-barrel Maglite at them. "It's okay baby," Joel whispered to the sobbing Sarah. "We're safe now." He looked up and waved at the soldier. "Hey! We need help over here!"

" _Halt or I fire_!"

Joel froze. He couldn't see the soldier's face but he heard the fear in the man's voice and he knew full well that fear made men do dumb things. "Look, brother, please, it's my daughter. I… I think her ankle's broken!" The rifle remained unerringly pointed at Joel's chest. "Look, I swear that neither of us are sick!"

There was a pause before the soldier spoke into a radio clipped to his chest armour. "Got a couple of civilians at the outer perimeter; please advise." There was a mostly inaudible crackling reply. "Please repeat that, I don't copy…"

"Daddy, what about Uncle Tommy?" Sarah whispered.

"We're gonna get you some help, then I'll get help from the soldiers so I can go back and find him," Joel promised.

"Please repeat," the solder said, sounding appalled. "Sir, one of them is a little girl! She can't be more than ten or twelve years… I… Yes sir. I understand." The soldier released his radio handset and looked up at Joel. "Brother, for what it's worth? This is fucking _bullshit_ but we can't take the risk of this disease getting out of Austin."

Joel couldn't believe this was happening. "Listen, buddy, we've just been through hell, okay? We just need…" Joel heard the 'click' as the rifle's safety was released. "Oh sweet Jesus, _NO…_!" Joel turned to flee just as the rifle fired. Sarah went flying from Joel's arms and Joel's left arm exploded into pain as a hammer blow slammed into his wrist. Joel tumbled backwards onto the ground. He looked up blearily and felt his bladder void with terror as the soldier walked up and aimed the rifle right between his eyes. "God, _no_! Please… please don't…"

 _BLAM!_ The soldier's head jerked sideways, blood spurting out of the side of his head and he crumpled lifelessly. Joel looked over to see Tommy step out of the bush, his revolver aimed at the fallen soldier. The younger Miller looked away from his target and went deathly pale. "Oh… _oh no_!"

Joel ran over to Sarah, who was lying on the ground, squealing in pain, her hands pressed over a huge bloodstain on the belly of her nightshirt. Joel scooped her up and desperately tried to think of something, _anything_ , he could do. "Sarah! Sarah, honey, I know it hurts but I need to see Baby Girl!" Joel tried to stop the bleeding but the moment he put pressure on the wound, Sarah made a wail of torment and tried to push him away. Her eyes snapped open and all the intelligence, humour and love Joel normally saw was gone; there was not even any recognition of her father, only the blank, terrified, stare of a mortally wounded animal; all he could hear were the gasping, pain-wracked terrified, wails that were the closest things to breaths escaping her lips.

Joel desperately tried to reassure her, tried to somehow reach through her pain and give her love. "Listen to me; I know this hurts, baby. You're gonna be _okay_ , baby; stay with me. Alright, I'm gonna pick you up." Sarah cried out in agony as her weight shifted. "I know, baby. I know it hurts. Come on, baby, please. I know, baby. I know…" Suddenly, the agonised cries stopped. "Sarah?" The girl gasped and then was limp in Joel's arms. "Sarah...? Baby Girl...? Don't do this to me, baby. Don't do this to me, Baby Girl. Come on... No, no... Oh no, no, _no_... _Please_! Oh, _God, please_! Please, _don't do this_. Please, _God_... Baby Girl… no… NO…!"

Joel Miller could not see through the tears. He rested his cheek on his daughter's chest for a long moment. Then he threw back his head and _screamed_.

Twenty years later, Tommy Miller would still say that he knew only too well the sound of a man's soul being torn from his living body.


	2. Summer - The Quarantine Zone

**The Last of Us**

Based on the story by Neil Drukmann

 **Disclaimer**

 _The Last of Us_ was written for Naughty Dog on behalf of Sony Computer Entertainment by Neil Drukmann and Bruce Straley. It is a trademark property of Sony Computer Entertainment. This is a not-for-profit fan-work for free distribution through the world-wide web. No infringement of trademark or copyright is intended.

 **Author's Notes**

I haven't seen a 'decent' straight novelisation of the game story so far and it was this that led me to start work on this. However, as I continued, I decided that, whilst I will be avoiding OCs, I wasn't content to just turn Neil Drukmann's fine story into a narrative story form. There was one change about which I had lots of ideas. With encouragement of a few other fans of the game, I decided to take this story in this new direction. I hope that I won't be changing any of the key points and themes but I really, really wanted to make this change.

You'll see what I mean in time.

Censor – M – Violence, profanity and description of death and disease

 **Act 1 – Summer**

 **Chapter 1 – The Quarantine Zone**

 _Twenty years later…_

Joel Miller came awake with a painful jerk, Sarah's name dying on his lips before it was uttered.

He hated bad dreams. He hated the fact that he had a hard time sleeping _without_ reliving that night when the End of the World began all over again. Most of all, he hated the fact that, no matter how hard he tried, how much he tried to tell himself that he'd moved on and crushed as much of his humanity beneath the stone façade of Survival as he could, that he still could not stop himself from feeling the agony as Sarah body went limp in his arms.

Joel rubbed his face through his salt-and-pepper beard and suddenly realised that it wasn't just the dream that woke him. Someone was banging on the door of his apartment, loudly and repeatedly.

With a groan, Joel hauled himself to his feet, feeling every _second_ of his fifty years. "All right, all right! I'm coming!"

Joel strode angrily through his apartment (power was off, as always at this time of day, so no electric lights, air conditioning or even god-damned _fans_ to help deal with the scorching summer heat). He spared not a glance for the various stacked boxes that contained the few possessions that he wasn't wearing on his back or for the tattered Venetian blinds with more damaged slats than intact. He walked to the door in the combined kitchenette/living area. It didn't look like an apartment of someone living in the United States anymore; he doubted anyone outside the highest ranks of the Military and their associated bureaucracy had that sort of luxury. If anything, the piles of stockpiled clothes, food and water plus a water bucket for hygiene purposes was more like something out of the Third World of Joel's youth. Of course, nowadays, that was the most for which anyone could really hope. He'd got used to it over the last decade or so. It was one of the many prices of surviving the End of the World.

Without bothering to look through the spy-hole, Joel yanked the door open. He only knew one person who knocked on the door like that.

Tess looked like hell. Although she was wearing her usual neutral and slightly mocking expression, her knuckles were bloodied and she had bruising on her face and even cuts on her right cheek and over her right brow. The brunette woman (Joel's room-mate, 'business' partner and occasional fuck-buddy, when the loneliness and horror of life in the Boston Quarantine Zone got too much for both of them) smirked slightly and pushed past Joel into the apartment.

"How was your morning?" she asked, her voice laden with sarcasm. Joel restrained the need to reply in kind (something like 'Obviously better than _yours_ ' came to mind but would be a lie). Tess walked over to a new bottle of whiskey (not the official-brand rotgut you got from the Ration Dispensary; the _good_ stuff, culled from their commercial stock for personal use). The woman poured herself a full finger of the liquor and roughly thrust the bottle at Joel. "Want some?"

Joel stamped down on several contradictory impulses. He wanted to hug Tess and try to soothe away the obvious pain she was suffering. He wanted to shout at her for wandering off on her own in an urban jungle that, frankly, was never as safe as the Federal Disaster Recovery Agency (FEDRA) claimed it was. There was a bit of him that wished _he_ was the one running this show so he could _order_ her not to do dumb stuff like this ever again (as if that would work). Instead, he just chose to turn his back on that mocking smile and the warmth that he saw in her eyes a lot nowadays but the ramifications of which he wasn't ready to handle.

"No I… don't want some," he said at last.

Tess leaned against the kitchen table and sipper her liquor with a distracted expression on her face. "Well, I have some interesting news for you…"

"Where _were_ you Tess?"

"West End District." Joel's expression did his talking for him and Tess became slightly defensive. "Hey! We had a drop to make!"

" _We_." Joel put a lot of emphasis into that one syllable. " _We_ had a drop to make."

"Hey, you wanted 'to be alone', remember?"

Joel turned away again, his fists clenched; he took a moment to calm himself. "So, I'll take one guess: The whole deal went south and the client made off with the pills _and_ our payment? Is that about right?"

Needing something to do with his hands, he grabbed a bit of rag that was allegedly a dishcloth in a former life, wet it (the water was running today, miracles of miracles; it even looked mostly like water without the usual yellowish tinge from decayed piping) and then walked back over to Tess to clean the woman's cuts and bruises.

Tess chuckled, a surprisingly light and young sound from such a world-weary woman and, with an impatient snort, she yanked the cloth out of his hands and started to work on her injuries. "The deal went through without a hitch!" Tess paused in her tentative dabbing at the cut on her cheek and reached into her tight worker's jeans to pull out a thick sheaf of perforated green cards. In a world where the only things left with value were those things with _intrinsic_ value as a means of survival, money and even precious metals had long since lost any power as currency, _these_ were the measure of wealth in Boston: The means to get food, clothing, medicine and even services for your chosen bolt-hole. "Enough Ration Cards to last the two of us for a month at least, even factoring in bribes and expenses!"

"So you wanna explain this?" Joel gestured at Tess's injuries.

Tess grimaced. "On my way back, I got jumped by these two assholes." Joel straightened, his eyes narrowing dangerously and his whole body language demanding more details. "Yeah, they got a few hits in but…" Tess considered Joel's posture and expression and felt strangely defensive. "Look, I managed!" she snapped out.

Joel sighed and finally succumbed to his concern for his partner; he snatched the towel out of her hands and began working on her cuts again. Tess didn't argue but simply submitted to his ministrations, pain doubtlessly overriding pride. "Are these 'two assholes' still with us?" Joel asked, already thinking how to make the underworld of Boston remember that he and his were off-limits for any kind of violence or intimidation.

Tess's smile suddenly turned predatory. "That's funny!" No-one with a brain took Tess lightly; she was more than capable of beating a guy to death with nothing but her fists.

Joel raised an eyebrow. "Did you bother to find out who they were before you caved in their heads like they was old eggshells?"

"Look, they were just a couple of nobodies; they don't matter. What matters is that _Robert fucking sent them_!"

Now _that_ was news. "Robert? _Our_ Robert?"

"Bastard knows we're looking for him; must have figured that he'd better take us out _before_ we find him."

Joel shook his head in anger. "That son of a bitch is smart."

The Quarantine Zones were better than being out in the wilds but that wasn't really saying much; it was still far from a land of plenty. FEDRA strictly controlled what was available to the Zone's ordinary citizenry. For over a decade, almost everything one could own was strictly rationed and only issued if one could prove to the agency that represented the last tattered remains of the government of the United States of America that you had a good reason to have it. 'Good' by the standards of the senior staff officers and their pet bureaucrats who now held most if not all the governmental power. Some things were _never_ going to be available of course. Working personal electronics? More than the most basic medical supplies? Forget about those; they were 'prioritised goods' – in other words only operational military units and the top of the top echelons got them regularly. You could certainly forget owning a weapon unless you had a great hiding place or if you were desperate or dumb enough to be willing to risk summary execution.

Of course, as at any time in human history where the government tried to restrict distribution and ownership of _anything_ , groups of 'entrepreneurs' with limited (or no) respect for the law rose up to supply those who didn't believe that legal restrictions trumped their desire to own things and had enough wealth to pay for the inevitable cost of the supply. Although FEDRA controlled pretty much all of the production capability of what was left of the country, there was a huge amount of stuff left over from before the Outbreak lying around in the ruins of human civilisation. Much of it was in surprisingly good condition.

The black market in the Boston QZ had several layers. Joel and Tess, as smugglers, had the particular speciality of sneaking items salvaged from outside the fortified walls of the zone to the inside (and sometimes vice-versa). However, apart from small shipments for specific customers, the two of them had neither the contacts, the organisation nor the disposable wealth (to make officials look the other way) to run a significant distribution network of their own. Thus, they had to rely on black marketers, people like Robert, to sell on their goods to the good citizens of the Zone.

Generally, the system worked very well but the chance of double-cross was always a looming threat. Robert had clearly decided that he preferred to sell on Tess and Joel's latest shipment of weapons and ammunition without the two smugglers' pay-off eating into his profit margin. He'd simply disappeared with the stock.

Tess broke into Joel's musing by walking over to him with an urgent and eager expression. "No, he's not smart enough. _I know where he's hiding_!"

Now _that_ got Joel's attention. "Like hell you do!"

Tess smirked. "Old warehouse over in Area 5," she said with an air of triumph. "No telling how long he'll be there though."

Joel's dark expression betrayed no emotion but Tess could see his determination and the lethal will that had once made him one of the most feared Hunters in the Gulf States. "I'm ready now," he growled.

"Oh, I can do now!"

* * *

Joel and Tess stepped out of their apartment block into a back alley. Everywhere there were signs of the decay that had consumed the once bustling city. Piles of uncleared garbage, paving stones shattered into uneven shards and a singular absence of the sound of air conditioning units, the one-time summertime chorus of urban America.

Overhead, on the roof of the building, a soldier armed with an assault rifle strode back and forwards uneasily, watching the people beneath him. Every time Joel walked around the Quarantine Zone, the comparison with some kind of prison camp got stronger. Of course, that is more or less what it was. It was just that monsters this prison was created to house were the ones _outside_ the walls.

Joel didn't bother to look at his watch – its action broken and its face shattered by a bullet from an assault rifle – a keepsake from a dead world and from a dead girl whom he still tried to convince himself didn't matter to him anymore twenty years after her murder. "Curfew's in a couple of hours," he remarked.

"Then we'd better get moving," Tess responded, the desire to confront Robert practically making her vibrate with eagerness.

The two set off for the gate onto the main street, as they did so, they passed a two of their neighbours, a man and a woman. The woman had received her 'Compulsory Civilian Work Order', basically her draft papers forcing her to do dangerous work outside of the walls of the Quarantine Zone – anything from repairing the outside of the fortress-like facility's walls to scavenging in the ruins of the rest of the city. It wasn't exactly popular work; far too many of the Infected were crowding too close to the city for anyone but those with the most vital business to willingly go beyond the walls whilst not armed to the teeth…

Naturally, the Army did not permit these work crews to carry weapons.

"You got your call-up for this shit, Joel?" the woman asked. Joel answered in the negative; the woman smirked and laughed in response. She hadn't expected him to; after all, it wasn't as if the authorities actually _knew he existed_. It was an ill-kept secret in the building that Joel and Tess weren't legal residents of the Zone. They had false ID papers and were engaged in illegal activities. No-one really cared at this point but Joel was cynical enough to know that, when things got really bad, all these nice people who turned a blind eye to their presence would be going running to the Military to turn them in.

Joel followed Tess through a gate and down an alleyway past dumpsters piled high with garbage bags; who knows how long they'd been here? FEDRA _tried_ to keep the city's essential services running but power and manpower were both in only intermittent supply. Garbage was just piling up faster than it could be burned (sometimes without even bothering to check for potential recyclable materials first).

On arriving on the street, Joel looked around; once again the comparison to half-remembered TV images of the Third World struck him hard. All the shop fronts were shuttered and there was no indication of any private commerce. The only shop-front not long since obliterated by graffiti was a double unit with a moderately-clean sign declaring it to be the 'Ration Distribution Centre'. Another armed military lookout paced restlessly on top of that particular building with other armed guards standing outside its shuttered front.

" _All residents must have current valid ID. Co-operation with city personnel is mandatory!_ " The subtly threatening announcement in a bland female voice was cycling over and over again over the PA speakers on every street corner as a HMMWV armoured car with a fifty-calibre machine gun turret roared past. Yeah, you didn't need to be a genius to figure that there was a lot of tension on the streets right now!

The cause of the nervousness of the various guards was easy to see. Virtually every flat surface was covered in the slogans and symbology of the Fireflies. 'Rise!' 'Look to the Light' and the omnipresent 'dragonfly' logo. The fact that the Fireflies were able to operate so openly would make Joel nervous too if he were in the Military, so he couldn't exactly blame these guys.

Joel had mixed feelings about the Fireflies. On one hand, he had no love for FEDRA and its various organs. Whilst on first glance, they were practically the only thing holding a hint of law and order together, in practice they were just a larger and better-equipped type of bandit clan. The QZs were little better than prison camps to provide manpower and a safe operating location for their attempts to control what few resources that remained in America.

That said, the Fireflies were, in Joel's mind, the worst kind of delusional idealists. Always talking about 'the restoration of freedom and constitutional government' as if that were even remotely possible with the way everything had turned into shit in the aftermath of the Outbreak. With around four-fifths of the population dead, infected or living in the wilds, there was precious little country to restore to anything and the thought that people would tamely submit to a 'restored constitutional government' was enough to make even the grim Texan smirk.

Of course, the fact that the Fireflies were hopeless dreamers didn't make them any less dangerous. They were a well-trained militia that had proven that, with non-military and jerry-rigged equipment, one could fight toe-to-toe with the far-better-equipped FEDRA military (which still styled itself the US Army). FEDRA kept this beyond-top secret of course but Joel and Tess weren't reliant on 'official information sources' (which rarely said anything these days anyway). From their various contacts from outside the QZ, mostly scavengers who were also their suppliers, they knew that the Fireflies had successfully fomented rebellions in several QZs. There was an undeclared civil war going on and, understandably, the level of Firefly activity in the Boston QZ made the military jumpy and trigger-happy. That's why even smugglers and black marketers went to a lot of trouble to remain under the radar or at least non-threatening.

Of course, the primary reason why Joel had mixed feelings about the Fireflies was because of his brother, Tommy. The very thought made Joel grimace. His younger brother had always been the idealistic one of the pair of them. However, the fact that Tommy had chosen such a radically different path and looked down on his older brother's choices so uncompromisingly remained a deep personal wound.

A few people were outside this day. The majority of those who were braving the summer streets of the Zone were behind the fenced-off queuing area for the Ration Distribution Centre. "Hey! When are you opening?" a woman yelled at a harassed-looking military guard standing by the shuttered door to the 'shop'.

"We'll open when the rations arrive!" the guard responded. "You'll know as soon as we do, lady!"

Tess was leaning on a concrete divider and was watching events as Joel joined her. "That's what? The third time this month the ration queue opened late?" Tess murmured, loud enough for him to hear but not to carry to the twitchy and violence-prone soldiers. "Supplies must be runnin' short again!" Joel just nodded. FEDRA were trying to keep a lid on it but people like Joel and Tess knew the truth – fewer and fewer farms, factories and mines were operating (or, if they were operating, were willing to supply the QZs for free anymore). Whilst this was good news for the Black Market, Joel also knew that the collapse of the supply chain was the first step to the collapse of the QZ altogether and he knew what was hiding behind those walls for the collapse of order to come boiling in like a tide of death.

It wasn't just the Infected… and they weren't even the _worst_ thing, both out there and in the human heart. Joel knew that better than anyone, in his humble opinion.

"Watch it man!" Joel looked over at the other side of the street. The Military had set up a very basic cordon with some wooden barriers and an armed guard at the junction of every barrier. An officer (who else would be wearing full body armour and a helmet with a Lexan faceplate on a police operation?) was pacing nervously. As Joel watched, soldiers began to lead four ragged looking civilians out. Ignoring their cries of protest, the soldiers forced all four to kneel with their hands on their heads.

One by one, two soldiers wearing full NBC (Nuclear, Biological, Chemical) Warfare protection kits began to process the four squatters, using a hand-held device that they pressed to the earlobe. The device was considered fool-proof as it could only be triggered by blood containing the infrared-fluorescing spores of Cordyceps Brain Infection.

* * *

 _Cordyceps…_

Or, to give it its scientific name, _ophidiocordyceps unilateralis_. Before the Outbreak, Joel had been just a builder, not a biologist. However, by bitter necessity he had become familiar with this strange parasitic life-form.

Like many fungi, Cordyceps was a parasite that lived inside other living beings, using both its host body mass and the nutrients that the host consumed to sustain itself. When it was first discovered, Cordyceps was considered purely a bug-killer. The spores got into the unfortunate bug and took over its motor nerves, turning it into a walking infection vector. Usually, the fungus would force its victim to walk to a high place where it would then be paralysed as the fungus consumed the creature's flesh to create its fruiting bodies, which would then waft down the spores on further unfortunate bugs, spreading the infection further.

Cordyceps was considered a curiosity; indeed, it was even hoped to turn the strange effects of large doses of its spores on the human mind into a useful psychiatric medicine and its immune system-supressing properties an anti-rejection drug for organ transplants.

No one knew precisely how this bug-killing wonder turned into the nightmare that it became. Joel remembered reading in the newspapers during that last, horrible week that it was believed to have been imported into the US through contaminated fruit shipments from South America. According to Tommy, some conspiracy theorists suggested that some biotech company had been messing with the fungus, trying to turn it into a non-polluting insecticide, tests of which they had been secretly carrying out on some commercial farm in South America and that no-one had realised how dangerous the spores were until it was too late.

In the end, it didn't matter. It turned out that this mutated Cordyceps was just as effective with humans as it was with ants at controlling hosts and spreading rapidly through dense populations of its chosen host.

Once the spores got into the human body, the fungal mycelium would rapidly spread through the body, binding itself to the nervous system until it reached the brain where it would assemble its controlling core. From there, it would quickly infiltrate and take over the sensory and motor control parts of the brain, turning the host's body into an extension of itself with fairly simple instinctive responses to seek uninfected humans and spread the infection further, usually by biting.

After a while, the growing mass of fungus would burst open the skull at weak points such as the optic nerve apertures and the join of the skull bones in the crown. It would then develop into a grotesque, crown-like mass of bioluminescent fruiting bodies where the head above the line of the upper mandible of the mouth had once been. After a while, once the nutrients in the host's body were used up, the fungus would simply stop the host moving in a cool, dark place and have it settle down for its final rest. Then it would grow into its final form, a huge fruiting colony covering a dozen square feet that would pour huge amounts of spores into the air over a period of years before it finally used up all its remaining nutrients and died off.

The thing was that, especially if infected by spores, it could take up to 48 hours for the host to fall victim to the first stage of the fungus's control of their body. With modern air travel and the borderless nature of the 21st Century world, the infection had spread across practically the entire globe in less than 24 hours, long before the first active infections were correctly identified and the shocked authorities realised what it was they were dealing with.

In less than 14 days, only a few, isolated island nations like New Zealand and Iceland were Infection-free. Human civilisation was already tumbling into ruin with the Infected outnumbering the clean in most population centres by four to one; governments were rapidly liquefying as their various agencies collapsed due to the Infection wiping out their personnel.

In less than two years, no place on Earth was untouched with all surviving governments reduced to military dictatorships with only limited control over their supposed territories.

In only five years, the old world was gone with the final tatters of the old order desperately clinging onto widely-dispersed clean zones with the world outside them long since lost to blood-splattered anarchy. Even in those clean zones, insurgent groups like the Fireflies were on the rise, accusing the military authorities of overreach of their legal authority and dereliction of their duties whilst claiming to know the way to restore the old world. Outside the QZs, in the wild, only the law of the jungle remained. Survival of the strongest and most ruthless; kill or be killed; take whatever you can and devil take the hindmost.

Twenty years later, in the year 2033, the world in which Joel grew up was a fading memory and, in his opinion, even the miraculous cure of CBI would not bring it back.

* * *

"Got a live one here!"

"Put her on the floor."

Joel's eyes snapped back to the raid on the run-down tenement building when he heard these words. An African-American woman was laying face-down on the floor and struggling with the soldier holding her down with a boot on the back of her neck, wailing in terror as the officer walked over, brandishing a hypodermic syringe. "God, no! I'm not Infected! I'm not…" Without a pause or even any real indication that he cared about the woman's protests, the man knelt beside the prostrate woman and inserted the syringe into one of her jugular veins and pumped in a lethal dose of barbiturates.

"Shit, man!" one of the already-scanned detainees moaned.

"Shut up! Eyes forward!" growled one of the soldiers briefly pointing his M4 assault rifle at the back of his head.

The soldiers stood back as the woman began to shriek even louder, thrashing about as the chemicals shut down her nervous system. FEDRA insisted that this was 'euthanasia' and was a merciful, humane and painless end compared with what CBI would do to you. Joel had seen the process plenty of times and, from the victims' reactions, it certainly seemed that it was plenty painful to him. He figured that he'd prefer a well-aimed bullet or two and that the only reason for this way of doing things was to conserve ammunition.

"She's down. Move on."

Not even bothering to look at the woman, who had finally fallen still with a final, agonised, rattling breath, the soldiers stepped over to the last detainee, a young blond man. "FUCK THIS!" With a sudden motion, the man slapped the scanner out of the soldier's hand and was on his feet, running. He vaulted the barriers just in time to receive a burst of fire from both NBC-suited soldiers' assault rifles. The two soldiers walked over to the man and checked to confirm he was dead (not that, realistically, there was anything else for him to be).

Yeah, on the whole, Joel would prefer a bullet.

The officer put his hand to his helmet as he activated his radio. "Sector Control, Squad One-Four-Papa: Op complete. Two for detention, two for disposal."

"Fuck man! This sucks!" groaned one of the two surviving detainees, the one who had offered some small protest at the woman's passionless execution. "Should 'a stayed outside!"

"Shut the fuck up," snapped one of the soldiers. "It's your own fuckin' fault for squatting in a condemned building!"

One of the soldiers guarding the perimeter gestured at Joel, his face unfriendly and his eyes clearly watching for the slightest excuse to fire. "Move on pal; this isn't a show!"

"That it ain't," Joel agreed.

Tess had been loitering slightly further away although she hadn't been able to tear her eyes away from this everyday macabre drama of the Boston QZ either. "Seems to me that every day more people are getting Infected," she murmured as she turned back to the checkpoint to the sector where Robert was, hiding, according to her information.

Joel scowled. "That just means more people are sneaking Outside and then getting back in." It was just another sign that the QZ's days were numbered, as far as Joel's was concerned. He started wondering how hard it would be to convince Tess to move on to one of the more secure QZs in the Detroit/Windsor or Toronto areas or out on the West Coast. Joel figured it would be _hard_ ; Boston was her home, after all.

As the two smugglers walked on, they passed another pair of gossipers, a man and a woman, these ones within sight of Checkpoint Five, the gateway to the industrial sector where Robert had, according to Tess, set up his base of operations. Well aware that keeping up with news was a survival necessity, Joel wandered over to listen in. The two gossipers noticed him at once. "S' up Joel?" the man asked.

Joel nodded to the man, an acquaintance like most of the residents of the QZ who lived in this sector. "Nothin'," was Joel's noncommittal response.

"You hear they took Marianne?"

The name didn't mean much to Joel; hell, he wasn't sure that he remembered _this_ guy's name. Avoiding getting too close with most folk was one of those things a man learnt to save himself from too much anguish if they get themselves killed.

"What happened?" asked the woman, saving Joel the trouble of prompting the guy to keep talking.

"Snatched her in the middle of the night; said she was a _Firefly_! Can you believe this shit?"

"Better not mention the Fireflies too loudly!" The woman shot a significant glance at the checkpoint and the troops, some on foot and some clustered around an armed HMMWV, who were scanning the buildings around them with a mix of open hostility and fear.

The man looked too and Joel watched the resentment and fear cross his face. "… Yeah, I guess you're right."

 _There's another guy who'll snatch up a gun when the Fireflies finally make their move_ , Joel thought to himself. "Gotta get going; keep your heads down, you hear?" he added aloud.

"Hey, come on, Texas!" Tess yelled. Joel nodded a polite farewell and moved off to join her. He refrained from jogging or doing anything else that might draw attention to him because the soldiers standing by the armed HMMWV that had just pulled up by the checkpoint were talking about how several of their compatriots had been massacred (apparently by the Fireflies as a 'reprisal') and what they would do to any 'stragglers' (i.e., anyone they felt was a danger to them) that looked at them wrong today.

Tess clearly felt the fear-drenched threat in the air too. She kept looking towards the two soldiers standing next to the HMMWV, who were still talking darkly about what would happen to FEDRA personnel in Boston if they lost control of the 'stragglers' and how they intended to avoid that grizzly fate. As the two smugglers passed each other, Tess slid a card-covered document into Joel's hand. "I got us all-new papers," she murmured. "Just play it cool and everything should be fine."

With a casual bravura that they didn't really feel, Joel and Tess walked down the line of concrete lane dividers to the pedestrian gate of the checkpoint. They halted as a slightly-unshaven and tired-looking guard held up a hand in a gesture to stop. "Let me see your IDs," the man said, raising his voice to be heard over the noise of the four-axle truck that was passing through the vehicle gate right next to them. The guard glared at the IDs but Tess's pet forger had proven their value again; he couldn't see anything wrong with the forged IDs. "What's your business here?"

Joel responded. "It's our day off. We're going to see a friend in Area 5."

The soldier frowned at the two civilians but had to admit that it all seemed legit. The well-built bearded man and the woman with the preoccupied frown didn't seem dangerous or even _significant_. They didn't have anything in which they could be smuggling anything and they didn't look anything like any of the known Firefly agitators and terrorists whose mug-shots they had to memorise _every damn time they went out of the barracks_. Finally, he mentally shrugged. "Okay, this is in order; pass on through."

"Thank you kindly," Joel replied without even a splinter of irony, stepping towards the gate through the concrete archway of the checkpoint.

Looking back, Joel would work out what happened next. The four-axle truck had left the checkpoint and driven over a manhole cover which had suddenly erupted upwards like a huge armour-piercing bullet; someone had placed an explosive charge under the cover. The improvised projectile had torn through the truck's guts and its fuel tanks had blown up instantly, sending high-speed shrapnel flashing across the area of Checkpoint Five.

At the time, all Joel could understand was that he was suddenly lying on his back in a filthy puddle that had collected in the ill-maintained asphalt leading up to the checkpoint; his head was ringing like a bell and his right arm was throbbing due to the long, shallow cut that had suddenly opened up between his wrist and elbow. Tess was tugging on his left arm, trying to drag him to his feet as the guards hurriedly shut the checkpoint gates, screaming instructions at each other, at Tess and at anybody. As the ringing in Joel's head subsided, he could hear the crackle of the soldiers' assault rifles, the similar answering sound of the attackers' full-auto rifles and the occasional sharp 'crack' of a hunting rifle.

"Joel, come on! Let's get outta here! Let's go! C'mon! Go! Go!" Tess took to her heels as her partner dragged himself to his feet and staggered off in her wake.

" _Goddamn Fireflies! Shoot 'em!_ " screamed someone as, with a deep-throated rhythmic thunder, the big fifty-calibre on the HMMWV joined in the party.

" _Attention. Checkpoint 5 is now closed until further notice. All civilians must clear the surrounding area immediately._ " The pre-recorded PA announcement cycled continually over the ringing of bells and scream of sirens.

As he ran for safety, he noticed with grim amusement of a torn and faded banner hung across the front of a building opposite the Checkpoint: ' _FEDRA Welcomes You to the Boston Safe Zone_ '. _Safe zone, my ass!_

Joel staggered into an apartment building further along the opposite side of the road from the Checkpoint (ironically the one just next to where Joel had encountered the two people complaining about a friend being arrested on suspicion of being a Firefly). Tess was there, bent over, hands on her knees and breathing deeply. "So… So much for the easy route!" she gasped. "Anyone following us?"

Joel looked over his shoulder through the dirty and cracked glass of the building's main door. Several military vehicles were pulling up next to the checkpoint and more soldiers were pouring out and racing into the battle that had suddenly flared up in the middle of the QZ. "Nope; looks like the coast is clear."

Tess nodded. Then she seemed to notice Joel's injury for the first time and grimaced. "Okay, you need to patch yourself up before we do anything else!" She gave Joel a small paper package that, when torn open, revealed alcohol-soaked rags that was the closest thing to a first-aid kit in the QZ (unless you were FEDRA, of course). Joel hissed slightly as he ran the infection-killing alcohol along his cut, placed one of the rags along its length to soak up blood and wrapped more of the rags around his arm.

"They're going to close up all the checkpoints after this," Tess predicted. "The only way through to Area 5 now is going to be to go outside."

"Outside the wall?"

Tess shot Joel a challenging look, an eyebrow raised mockingly and a smirk touching her lips. "Or we could just let Robert go after stealing our shit and trying to have me whacked."

Joel smirked back. "Oh, that's cute."

Joel hauled himself upright and set off in Tess's wake down the half-lit corridor of the apartment building.

As they walked down the corridor, past too many doors sealed by FEDRA for containing Infected materials and past tired, dispirited-looking folk, they came across a familiar face; a fellow smuggler. "Hey Tess, Joel! You see that shit?"

Tess snorted. "We were in the middle of it. How's the East Tunnel looking?"

"It's clear; I just used it myself. No patrols in the open areas. Where you headed?"

"Gonna pay Robert a little visit."

The other smuggler raised an eyebrow at Tess. "You too?"

Joel didn't like that sound of that. "Who else is looking for everyone's favourite black marketer?"

"Uh… Marlene herself! She's been asking around personally, trying to find him!"

"Marlene!" Joel was genuinely surprised to hear that familiar name. "What do the _Fireflies_ want with Robert?"

"Heh! You think she'd tell _me_ anything?" Seeing the concerned look on Tess's face, the other smuggler continued. "Look, I told her the truth; no clue where that little rat in human form's been hiding out lately!"

"Good." Tess shook her head. "Look, you keep your head down, okay? It looks like it's gonna be a hot evening and I'll bet the military ain't gonna be too fussy about checking their targets."

The man nodded. "Yeah, I hear that. See ya around, Tess, Joel."

The man slowed to a halt and leant casually against the wall, clearly content to wait out the day. Tess turned to look at Joel. "What do you think about that?"

"I don't like it. The top Firefly in Boston, maybe the top Firefly _period_ , is looking for our boy? Robert's been treading on too many toes lately; I figure we need to find him before the Fireflies do!"

The two reached the end of the long hallway and entered what must have once been a beautiful apartment with an 'L' shaped main room looking through windows over what had once been a park but was now an overgrown mess.

An elderly African-American man who'd likely been living here all his life, since long before the Outbreak and the Quarantine Zone, looked up as the two smugglers strode in. Joel noticed him tuck the grip of a double-barrel sawn-off shotgun back into a hollow in the moth-eaten couch on which he was sitting, reading a thick book. "Theresa; Joel; it's always a pleasure. How's it going?"

"All sorts of shit stirring up today!" Tess shook her head. "The only way from one side of the Zone to the other is the unofficial way. How's the tunnel looking?"

"It's clear. No military and no Infected." The man gestured at his book-case with an untroubled expression. There were more people involved in the black economy than most could imagine. Even people who were quite happy for their homes to be turned into one end of a secret smuggling tunnel, so long as they got a cut or (as in this guy's case) it 'stuck it to the man'.

Tess and Joel shoved the book-case aside and dropped into the hole thus exposed that led into the building's basement.

* * *

Joel shouldn't have been surprised but he still grimaced when, instead of the 'thud' of boots meeting concrete, the sound he heard as he landed at the bottom of the shaft leading in between the walls of the building was a 'squelch'.

"Jesus! What a reek!" Tess complained. "People should be more careful about what they drop down here!" Joel didn't see the need to reply, instead focussing on getting his bearings in the dimness of the light filtering down from the entrance way above. There was a shuffling as Tess moved; here night vision had always been better than Joel's. "Let there be light!" Tess flipped a switch and work lights strung around the officially long-sealed-off basement flashed to life, powered by a gas-fuelled generator of the sort that was quite illegal to be in private ownership. Of course, the smugglers of Boston had little time for such rules. Above, the 'gatekeeper', as Joel thought of him, responding to Tess's deliberately over-loud call, slid the bookcase back over the entrance to the tunnel.

Tess nodded in the appropriate direction. "C'mon, let's get our stuff."

Joel followed Tess down a short tunnel cut through the basements of various buildings here at the edge of the Quarantine Zone. This was an old, old smugglers' route and showed it. As well as the lighting, there were well-installed structural supports (Joel had used his building experience to erect some of those). At the far end of the tunnel was a well-equipped staging area with shelving racks, lockers and work-benches.

It was sort of strange that with so many criminal types coming through here, no-one had any problem leaving their stuff. The thing was that the various elements of the black market and underworld of the Boston QZ had a sort of honour system going. No-one screwed each other over casually. No-one took someone else's stuff. That was why Robert's actions had immediately earned him a big and possibly-fatal black mark. If you couldn't trust your business partners anymore, then doing business was that much harder. Naturally, just about anyone could turn out to be your next customer or supplier, so only an idiot would casually betray anyone.

Tess opened the locker that she and Joel used and pulled out their kit they kept for travelling beyond the walls in this sector.

Joel picked up his Colt Defender-8000 (the nine-millimetre version of the venerable M1911 forty-five semi-auto), pulled out the clip and worked the action a few times. It was still in working order. Joel tried hard to maintain his equipment, even though appropriate tools and materials were increasingly difficult to obtain. He wasn't about to lose his two decade war of survival just because his gun chose to blow up rather than shoot.

He glared at the clip; only four rounds left. "Runnin' real low ammo," he remarked.

"Better make every shot count," Tess responded as she stuck her Walther P5 in her waistband at her back.

Joel re-loaded his gun and stuck it in his waistband before tucking his gas mask (a modern survival necessity) into his backpack and sliding it onto his back. He then attached his torch to one of the straps of his pack so he could keep both hands free in the dark.

The two smugglers, now equipped for work, walked to the exit from the preparation/storage area. It was an elevated area, right underneath the floor of the building containing the exit. No-one was stupid enough to actually have a _ladder_ there; the whole place had been designed so that, with the lights off, it would just look like an abandoned basement extending underneath the perimeter wall.

Although Tess was hardly a lightweight, Joel's strength was enough to easily boost the woman up onto the raised platform. It was a testimony to her own strength that she could haul the heavily-built man up after her.

 _To be continued..._


	3. Summer - The Ruins of Before

**The Last of Us**

Based on the story by Neil Drukmann

 **Disclaimer**

 _The Last of Us_ was written for Naughty Dog on behalf of Sony Computer Entertainment by Neil Drukmann and Bruce Straley. It is a trademark property of Sony Computer Entertainment. This is a not-for-profit fan-work for free distribution through the world-wide web. No infringement of trademark or copyright is intended.

 **Author's Notes**

I haven't seen a 'decent' straight novelisation of the game story so far and it was this that led me to start work on this. However, as I continued, I decided that, whilst I will be avoiding OCs, I wasn't content to just turn Neil Drukmann's fine story into a narrative story form. There was one change about which I had lots of ideas. With encouragement of a few other fans of the game, I decided to take this story in this new direction. I hope that I won't be changing any of the key points and themes but I really, really wanted to make this change.

You'll see what I mean in time.

Censor – M – Violence, profanity and description of death and disease

 **Chapter 2 – The Ruins of Before**

The exit of the East Tunnel was through the floor of a long-since abandoned diner lying just outside the wall of the QZ.

Joel always found being in these areas a strange experience. The final evacuation of the area outside the Quarantine Zone was so sudden that very little was taken by their legitimate owners. Being so close to the walls made looting a risky prospect at best and, at the time the QZs were founded in the first two years after the Outbreak, hopes were still high that the scientists would quickly cure the CBI. People had honestly thought that they'd be going back to their lives. So, despite the generally-dilapidated feel (every window broken and every door hanging off their hinges) the interior of the diner was strangely neat and tidy. Every table still had condiment bottles and napkin holders neatly laid out on mostly-intact tables in largely intact booths. The soda dispenser still stood on the counter and empty but largely-intact drinks cabinets stood against the walls. Only a breach in the wall to the left, possibly caused by some explosive weapon in the hurried final clearance of the area outside of the QZ, broke the eerie feel of a ghost town.

Tess was striding confidently towards the doors whilst Joel re-settled the cobbled-together wooden cover to the top of the tunnel. "Be careful!" he called out.

"When am I not?"

Joel couldn't help a smile. "Is that a trick question?"

As for outside…? Well, Tess put it best: "Ain't been out here in a while!"

Joel looked around the space that had once been a fairly typical part of Boston, one of the most typical cities in the continental United States and felt a sudden unsettling surge of dislocation. What had once been a street with two rows of buildings was suddenly more like a canyon in a jungle. Everything was overgrown. A few abandoned cars, long since rusted into skeletal shapes, marked what had once been the location of sidewalks. Power and light poles stood in places, others having long since heeled over like dead trees. Vines, thick bushes and young trees grew everywhere, consuming the works of Man. Most of the centre of the road had long since been swept away by the out-flow from a shattered water main that had flooded up through the road surface before its supply had been cut off. Years of rains and erosion and swept away the remaining black-top, leaving a watery shallow crater that was rapidly turning into a swampy lake. The call of frogs and the buzz of flying insects filled the air.

This was no longer a city. It was now the Wilds; no more friendly to the presence of humanity than any other wild place. With a sudden melancholy, Joel wondered how long it would be before it was impossible to tell that this place had ever been an urban street rather than a quiet pond in the woods.

Tess was perhaps feeling the silence as much as Joel was. "Y'know, being out here with you feels kinda special. It's almost as if we're on a date or something!"

Joel chuckled. "Well, I _am_ the romantic type," he responded, earning a warm smile from his partner.

"Oh… you got your ways!"

The two smugglers sloshed through the knee-deep water to the other side of the road – a residential building over commercial premises once, now a crumbling ruin with gaping holes caused by more heavy weapons fire from the worst of the post-Outbreak anarchy.

One particular wall was suspiciously clear of growth. Tess looked around in annoyance. "Where's the ladder?"

"Last guy comin' through probably hid it in case a patrol came this way. It's gotta be around here somewhere." Joel turned away from the wall and began to walk along the row of decaying buildings, searching for the tell-tale glint of maintained metal amidst the hip-high grasses, saplings and the omnipresent colour of rusting metal. Seeing his objective, Joel leant down and lifted the ladder up into a carry that he used many a time on a construction site in his youth. "Got it!"

Tess stepped back as Joel manoeuvred the ladder in place, on the wall under the breach so they could access the second storey of the building. He then stepped back and gestured courteously. "Ladies first!"

Tess agilely scaled the ladder but couldn't help but make a comment. "Lady? You must be thinking of someone else!"

This earned a chuckle from both smugglers. "It's all relative," Joel remarked. Although he never saw it, this made Tess smile and blush ever so slightly.

Once inside the former luxury apartment, Joel decided to take a look around. Just because everything obviously usable would long ago have been stripped from somewhere that was so obviously a smugglers' thoroughfare didn't mean that something would have been missed and Joel was the sort of guy who would take resources to improve his odds wherever he could find them. The main room was once a luxurious lounge centred on a pool table. Through the door was the kitchen and dining room. In the kitchen drawers, he found some spare parts that looked like he could use for maintenance purposes and a pair of kitchen scissors.

"Someone's definitely been using this place," Tess said, agreeing with Joel's unspoken words. Joel went into what was once the bedroom and, very obviously, was again. There were six metal-framed bunk-beds around the room and the walls were decorated by the familiar 'dragonfly' logo of the Firefly organisation. Tess hissed in annoyance. If the Fireflies had set up a base on the East Tunnel route, then getting to and from Area Five without attracting official attention would be a lot harder in the future.

Joel frowned and looked around the well-arranged barracks room as Tess turned over mattresses and boxes in the hope of finding useful stuff. "Looks like they turned this place into a safe-house but it don't look like they've been around for a while though," Joel remarked. He walked over to a small corner table and found something. "Yep, I don't think that they'll be coming back." The item Joel had found was a Firefly ID pendent in the name of 'David Michael Vigil'. No living Firefly ever took off their pendent; it was a sort of statement of faith. Obviously, this one had been removed from a dead member of the group by his buddies but, if they had never intended to come back to this place, they would have taken it with them in the hope that, one day, they could tell his family that he had died for 'the good fight'.

"Either the Military got 'em or the Infected got 'em," Tess concluded. "There's nothing else here, let's go."

* * *

Joel and Tess toggled their flashlights on after jumping down to the ground level of the building (they had to jump – the bottom half of the stairs had long since collapsed into a mass of rot). This corridor, as well as containing the long sealed-off street entrance to the apartment, also had an entrance to an industrial laundry that took up the building's bottom and basement levels. Nothing down here worked anymore, of course. Joel wasn't even slightly surprised to see bedding and empty supply boxes that suggested that someone had been squatting down here not that long ago.

"Do you reckon Robert's still got our guns?" Tess asked idly.

Joel scowled. "For his sake, he'd better."

Tess shook her head at Joel's implied pessimism. "Look, once we get the merchandise back, it'll be easy to offload."

Joel only needed a single look around the mess to decide that there was nothing worth his time here. "Speaking of merchandise, when is our next shipment due anyway?" After all, there was a good chance that Robert _had_ already sold on his stolen cargo and a businessman had to look ahead, not dream of the deal lost in the past.

Tess set off down the corridor to the rear of the building. "Well, we're supposed to be meeting Bill at the end of the month. More pills and lots of ammo… supposedly… Wait… _shit_!" The woman froze at where the corridor turned into the bays where the laundry machines still sat, rusting away. "Hold up! _Spores_!"

Joel looked around the corner and bit off a furious curse of his own. The corridor was filled with a dancing miasma of softly-luminescent golden dust. Cordyceps spores: absolute guarantor of a living death to anyone luckless enough to breathe them in. Joel and Tess hurriedly fumbled on their gas masks and took a moment to check the seals before cautiously setting off down the corridor. "Where the hell have these come from?" Joel complained. "Place was clear the last time!"

"Well, they're coming from somewhere! Stay alert!"

As they entered the room with the laundry machines, the two smugglers were frantically sweeping around them with their flashlights, looking for any sign of movement and any sign of the source of the spores. Wherever it was, it was blocking a primary smuggling route. There were others but it was one of those elements of the honour system in the Boston QZ's black economy that anyone who found a spore-generating infection cleared it away themselves as soon as they could or at least spread the word so someone else could.

Nothing here; the two entered into the short tunnel dug through the wall of the abandoned laundry into a former commercial office that was the next step in the path to Area Five. Joel saw it first. "There's our culprit."

At the mouth of the tunnel a man lay crumpled on the pile of bricks that had been torn from the wall long ago to create the smuggling tunnel. Grotesquely, shining pink fingers of fresh Cordyceps sporocarps - fruiting bodies - were growing from his shoulders and face. It was unusual to see a first-stage Infected having turned into a spore generator like this. Joel guessed that the general lack of prey in this abandoned part of Boston meant that Infected settled down to make spores a lot faster than they would normally.

"Bodies aren't that old," Tess noted. "They've barely just settled down. We'd better keep our eyes and ears open. Whatever infected them may still be around!"

Joel's brow wrinkled at the plural tense before he saw what Tess had seen. Crumpled in the far corner was a female corpse with sporocarps sprouting from her chest. The wall behind her was marked with the large reddish blood splash-like stain of Cordyceps hyphae threads spreading out to create more areas for the sporocarps to grow. Joel wondered if, maybe, these were the squatters who had been living in the laundry.

In the far corner of the small store-room was the door out into the main office area, now blocked with some wood and a partly toppled filing cabinet. Joel considered the blockage for a moment. "Hold on, I think we can squeeze through…" Joel shifted one bit of timber and, too late, realised that it was practically the only thing holding together the entire blockage. Bits of plaster wood and concrete tumbled from the ceiling as the big man backpedalled from the cave-in. " _SHIT_!"

"Are you okay? Is your mask still good?" Joel understood her worry. One breath of the spores would be enough to snuff out his humanity like it was a flickering candle in as little as 48 hours.

"No, I'm fine. Watch yourself though; fuckin' ceiling's coming apart. Doubt we'll be able to use this route much longer!" Joel noted that at least the doorway was now clear. "Okay, take it easy but I think we can get through there."

As Joel slid through the narrow opening into the office area proper, he realised, with a sudden spike of horror that _something was touching his ankle_. Reacting on an instinct that he didn't care to analyse, he grabbed Tess by the shoulders and practically _flung_ her out of the doorway and clear of the figure on the ground that had tried to grab him. He stepped back a bit from the figure, who was coughing desperately despite his gas mask.

"H… Help me!" the guy pleaded.

Joel looked dispassionately at the scene. The cave-in that had blocked the doorway had clearly affected this room too. A filing cabinet had been knocked over by falling debris and had trapped the man underneath its weight. "Don't think there's much I can do for you, brother," he gravelled. Even if he and Tess were inclined, he doubted that they could move the fallen rubble, timber and the filing cabinet in anything less than hours and he wasn't keen to stay in the spore-filled rooms longer than strictly necessary. Even then, the guy was probably so badly injured that he would have to be carried out of the building, something that Joel wasn't keen to try, especially as there were almost certainly Infected denizens in here.

"M… My mask broke," the man gasped. Joel looked at the panic-stricken eyes behind the gas mask's eye plates. "For God's sake, do what you have to but don't leave me to turn… _please_!"

Tess audibly swallowed in horror. Turning whilst trapped and without the means to even end it; for everyone who had thought about it, this was a nightmare. "What do we do?" she murmured, suddenly sounding a lot younger than her thirty-or-so years.

Joel circled warily around the man. In the corner he found what was almost certainly the unfortunate guy's gun. A nine-millimetre pistol of some sort; looked like a Beretta-92. Almost automatically, Joel pulled out the clip, slid out the two remaining bullets within and fed them into his gun's magazine. "For God's sake, you can't leave me here!" the man choked out.

A part of Joel, a merciless part of him, told him that this wasn't his problem and that he had little enough ammo for his gun to be wasting it on someone who was already dead. Another part of him, a part that he rarely listened to, asked him how he would feel if the situation was reversed. Hadn't he always promised himself to eat a bullet before he could turn?

Joel dropped the empty pistol and walked back to the man, sliding the magazine into his gun and racking the slide to load the first round into the chamber. "Sucks to be you, friend," he said gently, raising his Colt and centring it on the man's head, taking a braced pose to maximise his accuracy.

" _Thank you…_ " the guy gasped out before Joel squeezed the trigger, blowing a hole through his head and much of his brains out the other side. The noise was nearly deafening in the enclosed space and would likely bring anything with more than a few working brain cells running but neither living smuggler cared for the moment.

"Poor bastard…" Tess muttered in horror. Joel just turned away. There was nothing left to be said or done. A quick sweep around the office area found nothing of significance except two large hyphae stains on the corner of the wall and ceiling above two long-abandoned cubicles that indicated that, a long time ago, there had been spore-generators here.

Joel led Tess through a partly-boarded up doorway into a corridor with two doors leading out into the main area of the office and the exit back out of the building. Suddenly, there was a sound of shouting and screeches that were _once_ human. Both smugglers dropped into crouches. " _Hear that?_ " Tess whispered sharply.

Joel gestured for silence and pressed himself against the wall by the first door, straining his ears. What he heard was someone shouting desperately for aid, his shouts suddenly turning into a horrendous, liquid-sounding scream accompanied by the shrieks of triumph from the throats of at least two Infected.

Finally, the noise faded (apart from the nightmare-inducing sound of flesh being torn apart). Joel could hear the noise of an Infected in just the next room, gasping and muttering inanities to itself. It was a Runner, the first stage of Infection.

Runners were nearly indistinguishable from a human. However, you couldn't miss their spastic, twitching movements and their continual muttering to themselves, usually repeating over and over again the last human thought that crossed the communication centre of their brain before the CBI took control of their bodies, leaving them helpless prisoners, locked into an unending hell. Another way that you could tell a Runner was by their eyes: their eyes were covered in a thin layer of Cordyceps mycellum that gave them a blind look and shone in the dark with the characteristic golden-white bioluminescence of the fungus.

This one was now standing in the centre of a small room, possibly a former office of some sort, clawing at its face and muttering words to itself that had no meaning to anyone or anything except to the person that had once owned this body. Someone who, if there was even the slightest sliver of mercy in the universe (something Joel doubted) had slipped into the oblivion of insanity long ago and wasn't aware of what the parasite was doing with his body.

"How do you want to handle this?" Tess whispered. "Do y'think we can slip past them unnoticed?"

Joel didn't bother with a reply. Carefully, measuring each step to ensure it would not make a sound, he crept up behind the Runner. He sneaked closer and closer until he was within touching distance. Then he shot up to his full height and wrapped his strong arms around the creature's neck, yanking it backwards off of its feet. With the ease of long practice, his right hand stabbed forward, finding the Runner's windpipe and pinching it closed in a vice-like grip, cutting off its cry of furious surprise before it was uttered. For five long seconds, the Runner thrashed helplessly, trying to get some purchase on its attacker before its movements slowed and finally stopped, the creature going slack in Joel's arms.

The big man quietly and gently lowered the corpse to the floor, not out of any particular reverence for the dead but because he didn't want to attract the other Runners, at least two of them in the next room, by making a noise. Runners' eyesight wasn't too good; for some reason Cordyceps couldn't properly interpret the signals from the visual cortex, if it could at all. Hearing though, worked fine. Indeed it was better than that of an average uninfected human, so the slightest noise would certainly attract them.

Still moving quietly Joel edged out into the main room of the office, as filled with spores as the rest. On the other side of the room was the stairwell up to the upper storey of the building and the exit from this part of the smuggling route. However before they could get there, there was the issue of the two Runners on the far side of the room feasting ravenously on the body of the guy they'd caught just a minute or so before.

Joel swallowed his nausea; puking in his mask was a death sentence. Keeping an eye on the two Infected, he and Tess slowly side-stepped towards the stairs. Joel didn't know what he trod on, in the end it didn't matter. What mattered was the sudden _crack_ that cut through the sounds of cannibalistic frenzy. Both Runners reacted instantly, their heads snapping upwards and turning towards the noise.

Joel didn't hesitate. His Colt was already out and, as the female Runner staggered to its feet, he aimed his gun between the shining yellow beacons of its eyes and squeezed the trigger. There was a deafening report and the Runner tumbled backwards, blood marked with bioluminescent points fountaining out the back of its head.

The other, a male, was already charging the two smugglers with a wailing shriek as Joel shifted his aim. Tess's Walther fired twice, staggering the creature. Her third shot coincided with Joel's next and the Runner crumpled lifelessly in a heap.

Joel triggered his flashlight and swept the room. The echoes of the gunfire were dying away and there was no sign and no sound of further movement. "I think that was all of them," Tess remarked.

"Let's hope so," Joel growled. The windfall of that luckless guy's ammo was all used up _and_ another shot besides. Sometimes, Joel thought that the world was laughing at him and his.

Not having any desire to be jumped from behind, Joel strode across the space into what looked like the canteen. His flashlight's beam picked out something at once – a FEDRA-standard ration bar. It looked like a candy bar or maybe a cereal bar but it was as good as a meal; tasteless but beggars couldn't be choosers. It went into Joel's pack.

The door to a small rest area beside the kitchen was unlocked. Joel pulled it open and was grateful for his thoroughness because a damaged 9mm pistol with three rounds in its magazine was sitting on a small table in a pool of light from a dirty window looking like a divine gift.

He figured that the Runners' lunch had been hiding in this room, waiting for the Runners to move away from the door so he could get out. When he had heard the shot of Joel's mercy killing he'd moved but moved too early and the Runners had brought him down. Perhaps Joel should have felt guilty about being indirectly responsible for the man's death but he didn't even think about it. You were smart or you were dead in this world. Sometimes, you got to be both if your luck ran out.

Joel walked back out and joined Tess climbing up the stairs to the upper level. A gaping hole led out into the open air and the spores were thinner here, most escaping through the hole and dispersing harmlessly. Joel decided to check what, once, was the office of the manager of the organisation.

Here, along with another FEDRA ration bar and a few lukewarm bottles of water, he found a depressing story. The Runners were once a small group people trying to sneak into the Zone from outside but who had got themselves infected. The two guys from whom Joel had acquired some ammo were pretty obviously the smugglers whom they had hired to sneak them in. On an impulse, Joel took the note that explained the story. He couldn't honestly say why. Maybe, just maybe, he intended to ask around the smuggler grapevine, see if someone knew who Mark's brother was and pass them his last message. Knowing was always better than spending the rest of your life wondering.

"Joel, we need to get back into the city," Tess remarked. Joel wordlessly passed her the note as he walked towards the hole in the outer wall. Tess made a sympathetic noise. "As much as everyone bitches about life in the Zone, you've got all these poor bastards outside, wishing that they were living on the inside!"

Joel and Tess jumped down from the breach into a semi-flooded alleyway that led out onto a street in what had once been an industrial/commercial zone before it was abandoned to become another part of the Wilds. Both smugglers pulled off their gas masks and Tess flipped her hair in a way that made a part of Joel that he didn't often admit to react. "Ah! Some fresh air!" she sighed. "That's the one think I love about the outside: I fucking hate the smell of the city!"

They crossed the street… well, waded through what had become a river of rain-water that had collected in the ruined buildings and funnelled by the shape of the roadway into a slow-moving flow of water down to the sea. "Well, why don't you ask Bill for one of them pine air fresheners in the next shipment?" Joel mocked semi-seriously.

"I might," Tess responded. "If they weren't all expired, it might even be a good idea!"

* * *

The last part of the route involved passing through a warehouse that had long-since collapsed into a hollowed out shell. The presence of a sheaf of FEDRA wanted posters (mostly a "who's who" of the Fireflies in Boston) and the fact that the plank leading across the gaping hole that had once been the floor of the second storey had been removed indicated that whoever had been removing parts of the route might have been either Military or trying to lose Military pursuit. Based on the recently-abandoned sleeping squat in the shade under the remains of the upper storey and the ID pendant of one Ben Glueck, Firefly no. 000106, hanging from a tree near the fire escape from the warehouse suggested to Joel that it might be the latter. There were lots of indications that the Fireflies had a serious presence in the East Tunnel smuggling route and that they had recently abandoned it in a hurry.

Joel and Tess walked through a surprisingly new-looking metal door into what had once been a small jeweller's store. Surprising until you realised that it was the passage through the wall back into the Quarantine Zone. Tess strode towards the door out into the Zone. "Joel, we're gonna need some extra power if Robert has lots of muscle; get some stuff from the box."

Joel backtracked into the small kitchen area where they had entered. Like most abandoned areas close to the Zone, it had long since been stripped clean. That's why no-one had found the crude false back that Joel had installed in the cabinet over the sink (which had lost it door so long ago that there was no real evidence it had ever had one). Inside, the wooden box, which had once contained chess pieces, was sitting completely undisturbed. Joel flipped it open, moved aside some yellowed grease-proof paper and pulled out some extra tools he and Tess had stashed here just in case a few trips ago. As well as loaded magazines for Joel's Colt and Tess's Walther, there were also two empty magazines and a nearly-empty box of 9mm ammo. Joel also pulled out a nicely finished, sharpened and reinforced shiv that he'd crafted. Guns weren't the only way to make a killing in the Zone; they weren't even the _best_ way.

Back in the shopfront room, Joel silently handed Tess the ammo and, as she fed three extra rounds into her empty spare clip, he tucked his shiv away into a belt loop-like sheath he had attached to the back of his jeans.

Tess banged on the front door of the former jewellers' shop and waited until a ragged-looking little boy – 10 years old at most – answered it. "Hello, little man!" Tess offered the boy a ration card and then snatched it back at the last moment. "Check to make sure the coast is clear. No soldiers; none of Robert's men, got it?" The boy nodded eagerly and Tess handed over the card.

As they waited, Joel finally gave vent to something that had been chasing itself around his head ever since they set out. "You know he's expecting us?"

Tess grinned in a feral way that reminded Joel again just how amazingly _dangerous_ a woman she was. "Well, that'll just make it more interesting!"

There was a double knock on the door and, through a window, Joel saw the little boy striding away nonchalantly. A sign of the times: a pre-teen who was utterly at ease aiding a pair of desperate armed criminals. "Good to go!" Tess remarked, opening the door again.

 _To be continued…_


	4. Summer - The Slums

**The Last of Us**

Based on the story by Neil Drukmann

 **Disclaimer**

 _The Last of Us_ was written for Naughty Dog on behalf of Sony Computer Entertainment by Neil Drukmann and Bruce Straley. It is a trademark property of Sony Computer Entertainment. This is a not-for-profit fan-work for free distribution through the world-wide web. No infringement of trademark or copyright is intended.

 **Author's Notes**

I haven't seen a decent 'straight' novelisation of the game story so far and it was this that led me to start work on this. However, as I continued, I decided that, whilst I will be avoiding OCs, I wasn't content to just turn Neil Drukmann's fine story into a narrative story form. There was one change about which I had lots of ideas. With encouragement of a few other fans of the game, I decided to take this story in this new direction. I hope that I won't be changing any of the key points and themes but I really, really wanted to make this change.

You'll see what I mean in time.

Censor – M – Violence, profanity and description of death and disease

 **Act 1 - Summer**

 **Chapter 3 – The Slums**

It had been a long time since Joel had used the East Tunnel to get to Area 5. As was always the case in the lower-status parts of the QZ, things were always changing. In this case, the area outside the alley where the route ended was now a slum market.

The simple fact was that FEDRA's ration system didn't even pretend to provide everyone what they needed. The 'subsistence' level of rations for those who didn't work beyond the wall, provide FEDRA with a vital service or had access to enough black market goods to obtain extra ration cards was very, very low. So, the people of the Zone had to provide a lot of things for themselves. Places like this were where these things were bought and sold. With his first look around, Joel saw a hot food stall (selling roasted and fried rat – always a near-inexhaustible foodstuff in the rubbish-infested Zone), a guy selling attack dogs and stalls selling clothing, furniture and candles (probably using recycled food wastes as wax).

"Hey Tess!" an excitable man with a weird high-and-tight haircut was babbling in a way that made Joel think he had somehow got hold of some kind of mind-altering drug that had permanently screwed over his synapses. "Pretty lady! I hear that you got merchandise! I got good cards! I got…"

"Not now, Terrance," Tess snapped. The guy reached towards Tess but her glare was enough to stop him dead. " _Not now_!"

"Okay, okay! No need to get all huffy-puffy about it!" Joel walked up and shot the man a look of his own, just to reinforce the message that hands-on with Tess was a bad idea. The man looked too far gone to understand.

As Tess walked off to a tight cluster of stalls leading to the other end of the former courtyard that was now the market's venue, Joel walked over to a corner where a fat, sweaty woman was selling clothes. He'd seen something that might come in useful.

The woman glared at the heavily-built smuggler. "Whatever you want, I'm not interested in trading for bullets. It's food, Cards or nothing!"

Joel nodded. "I've got food," he responded. "A ration bar for that vest." He pointed at what looked like a heavily-padded shirt. It was a Slum Flack Vest, basically two shirts sown together and the in-between stuffed with rag, cork-boards, bits of scrap metal and just about anything. It was crude but it was the closest thing someone outside of the Military could get to body armour in the Zone. Joel had a feeling that he was going to need it. Normally, he wouldn't bother buying from a place like this except in an emergency, but that particular shirt looked like it was made to a good standard.

The woman looked at Joel shrewdly. "Two bars, brother. I'm not a charity."

Joel shook his head. "Your work is good, lady, but not _that_ good. One."

"For that, I'll do without the deal!"

"Okay, I'll add a bottle of clean water too."

Clean water was a major commodity in the QZ where the water didn't always flow and, when it did, it was contaminated more often than not. The woman's eyes lit up. "Pal, for that, you've got yourself a deal! I'll even throw in an extra!"

Joel shrugged out of his pack and put on the jacket, which was a good fit. With the sewn-on belt ties tightened, it was also a snug fit and gave good mobility. He was glad that his eye for these things hadn't let him down. The 'extra' were a pair of leather straps with earthing irons riveted in at mid-length. Wrapped around his upper finger joints, they would make fair if crude knuckledusters. He pulled his pack back on and walked over to Tess.

"Finished your shopping Texas?" Tess didn't mind. What Joel did with his stuff was his business. Besides, it was a good buy; he wasn't as good as dodging around as her and, besides, the extra bulk of the jerry-rigged armour made him look that bit more impressive as her 'muscle'. In this situation, psychology was important and some guys would just choose not to force a confrontation.

As the two smugglers entered the row of stalls, a man sitting on a chair in one with a woman perched on his lap spoke up. "Hey, Tess! It's been a long time! You never visit anymore! Where you been?"

"Who the hell is that?" the woman hissed, triggering an argument with the guy that made him forget all about Tess.

"You touch it, you bought it," growled one of the stall keepers to Joel. Joel decided against answering, instead skirting around what was obviously the guy's stall.

Climbing onto a long-immobilised bus through its rear emergency exit, Joel saw a small fenced-off area to the right where two men were engaged in a furious fist-fight. From the loud yells, encouragement and insults being offered by the onlookers, as well as the wagers being passed back and forth, Joel figured it was a prize fight.

"Where the hell do you think you're going?"

Joel's eyes narrowed as he considered the man standing, blocking his way through the bus to the far end of the courtyard. He was about Joel's size, muscular in his own right and had a look in his eyes that told the Texan man that he knew how to fight. "It's okay Malik!" Tess called as she stepped up behind her partner. "He's with me!"

"Oh… Didn't know you'd got yourself new muscle, Tess! Go on through!"

"Who's that?" Joel murmured as they disembarked.

"An old headache; don't ask."

Joel looked around the much more quiet area they had entered. This area seemed to be more where people were trying to make their shelters rather than a place of commerce. Over at the far end, by a set of locked chain-link gates, two locals were muttering about someone 'hoarding all kinds of stuff' in his warehouse – no doubt talking about Robert. Joel also found some interesting little bits of local colour. First was a 'Wanted' poster for no less a personage than Marlene herself. The second was an Outside Work Duty draft notice with some interesting suggestions scribbled over the official text about what the city commander could do to pleasure himself.

Tess was waiting at the entrance to an alley. As he walked back to her, Joel passed a little girl who was obsessively stroking the hair of what he realised was some kind of rag doll. She shied back from the big smuggler's gaze, drawing the toy protectively against her chest and hiding her face behind her dirty blonde hair.

Even childhood was an endangered species these days.

"I'm looking for Robert. Has he been through here lately?" Tess asked an African-American man in a hoodie who was loitering by the entrance to the alley, offering him a ration card.

"Yeah; 'bout half an hour ago with some of his muscle. Said he was going back to the wharf; he's probably still there now."

Tess nodded and gave the man his payment.

* * *

Tess and Joel walked into a small courtyard in between a square of tenements. A few empty pallets of boxes were scattered around. Three very large and armed men walked in from an alleyway at the other end.

"Aaannnd here we go," Joel drawled quietly as the men formed a simple cordon line, blocking access to the alleyway from which they had just emerged.

"Let us through." Tess's words weren't a suggestion or a plea.

The goons weren't impressed. Their apparent leader, a shaven-headed, black-skinned giant replied in a soft, dangerous voice: "You guys need to turn around if you know what's good for you."

Tess shook her head. "Our beef isn't with you or your crew, it's with Robert. Whatever he's paying you, it isn't worth you getting tangled up in someone else's business."

"Turn the fuck around and leave, NOW!"

Tess wasn't impressed. "I'm not going anywhere without Robert."

The giant seemed to lose his temper and stepped closer to Tess. "Bitch, I will bash in your fucking skull if you don't turn around and get your _dumb ho ass_ …"

"Fuck this!" Tess sighed. Her Walther flashed up and she put a bullet in the man's head and heart before he had a chance to finish his last sentence.

The other two goons clearly hadn't been expecting that. With cries of panic, they jumped behind one of the sets of crates. Joel and Tess did the same. "I'll keep their attention; you get the angle on them!" Tess snapped out.

Joel nodded. Tess popped up and wasted two bullets on the wall behind the goons hiding place, discouraging them from sticking their heads out of cover for a moment. Simultaneously, Joel darted across an open area to dive behind another crate. A bullet cracked against the side of the crate as he dropped into cover.

Joel popped up and the left-hand goon spotted him and squeezed off a shot that clipped the right shoulder of his padded vest but doing no other damage as he dropped back into cover. The right-hand goon fired two shots at Tess who replied in kind, forcing him to duck down before she dropped down herself to reload. The guy on the left popped up again but, this time, Joel was ready and his Colt spat, clipping the goon's cheek and making him jerk back with a cry of pain. Joel corrected and put the second shot right on target on the centre of his target's face, dropping him instantly. He then ducked down as the other man fired once at Tess and then once at Joel. Tess popped up again and fired back a single time, forcing the remaining goon to duck.

Joel took the opportunity to duck across to a third set of crates that ended right alongside the goons' hiding place. The remaining goon had finished reloading and popped up to take a shot at Tess. Tess got her shot in first, the shot shattering his collar bone, knocking him back and making him drop out of Tess's line of fire. Joel, unnoticed, leaned out around the side of the crate. He centred his gun on the man's temple and pulled the trigger once, sending him down for good, still down in his hiding place.

The courtyard fell silent. Tess stood up, nodding grimly in approval of the outcome of the gunfight. "Nicely done Texas," she remarked dryly. She gestured at his reinforced shirt. "Looks like your fashion statement got creased!"

"It's what it's here for," Joel growled back. He picked up the goons' guns: Two nine-millimetre semi-autos and a semi-auto in an exotic calibre for which Joel doubted he would ever be able to find ammunition; he just left that where it lay. Tess took the full clip from one of the 9-millimetres and Joel the four rounds remaining in the other guy's gun.

The two smugglers left the field, loading their spoils into their guns. Joel shook his head. "Where the hell is Robert finding all these people to fight for him?" It wasn't as if Robert was a popular guy or the sort for whom people were lining up to work and, potentially, die.

Tess shrugged. "If he's good for anything, Robert is great at writing blank cheques. What say we put an end to that?"

* * *

After passing through a rat-infested alleyway and another boost-and-lift with a six-foot high wall beside a locked gate, Tess and Joel found themselves at what both felt certain was 'the warehouse' the locals had been complaining about.

The two smugglers clambered through a hole in a chain-link fence and then dropped down into the courtyard and ducked down behind some packing crates; full crates this time. Just in time too, as two armed men walked out of the building that had once housed Spencer's Computer Supplies. "How do you know they're coming?" the first asked.

His buddy snorted. "Two of our guys _died_ trying to take out Tess this morning. I guarantee that she and Joel are on their way over, right now, to pull the payback out of Robert's ass!"

The first man shook his head, his eyes getting wider. "Shit! We shouldn't have taken this job!"

"Not our call. Let's spread out and make sure no-one's creeping around here."

"We take 'em out fast and quiet," Tess murmured into Joel's ear as the big man wrapped on his slum-crafted knuckledusters, figuring he'd need them now the fight was getting a bit more intense. "Stay low and stay away from those windows." Joel nodded. There were sure to be more sentries inside the warehouse, given how central it seemed to be to Robert's operation.

Tess crab-walked towards the first guard, ducking from packing crate to packing crate as Joel quietly padded in the wake of the second. A few moments later Joel heard a grunt of surprise followed by a tearing sound as Tess grabbed her man from behind and rammed her butterfly knife into the side of his neck.

Staying low, Joel came up close behind the second guard, who was standing beside a long-derelict truck parked by a set of gates so rusted that it was unlikely they would ever open again. Joel looked towards the warehouse; no sign of anyone watching. He popped up and grabbed the guy around the throat, dragging him down and strangling him as he did so.

" _Move up! Move up!_ " Tess hissed as she darted for one of the two entrances to the warehouse. Joel crouch-walked over to the window and pressed himself to the wall, listening for movement.

Two guards were inside, talking loudly and unconcernedly. "Yeah, I meant to tell you: I was down on Jordan Street and all these soldiers showed up with a group of about five civs, all in handcuffs!"

A second voice responded in a tone of amusement. "Let me guess; Fireflies?"

"Yeah, that's what they _said_. They lined them up against the wall and _bang, bang, bang_! They just executed all of 'em!"

"Holy shit!"

"Yeah, I hear it's like that all over the city! They're cracking down on them hard!" There was a pause. "I got a cousin with them."

"Seriously?"

"Yeah; idiot thinks he's gonna save the world! Hope he's alright."

Joel lifted himself up. There were two people in what looked like an office space. One man was standing near the window, watching a second man who was half-heartedly searching some shelves by the far wall. Beyond the second man was a door into another part of the warehouse. Joel saw Tess peeking around the corner of the doorframe. Joel caught her eye and pointed to the guy by the shelves. She nodded. Joel quietly hauled himself through the window, every shard of the glass long gone and grabbed the nearest guy from behind.

So silent was the take-down that the first hint the other guy got that there was trouble was when Tess jumped on him from behind and ripped open his throat with her knife.

Tess shook her head at the mess. "Let's check this area again and then see if we can find our way through to where Robert is."

Tess found herself four bullets for her pistol whilst Joel found another ration bar and a family-sized can of FEDRA food rations. The official canned rations reminded Joel of tinned dog-food (indeed were probably more-or-less the same thing). Nonetheless, when heated, the reconstituted meat-and-vegetable mix was a decent enough meal if you were desperate. A lot of folks these days were desperate.

Most importantly, Joel found a small key that fit in the lock of the door that led out of the office area and further towards the sea-front.

* * *

The moment the two smugglers passed through the door, they were back in enemy country. Joel and Tess dived into cover behind another tarpaulin-covered collection of packing crates. Outside, in an open area between several warehouses, a few of Robert's hirelings could be heard talking in a way about their boss that indicated that they were in it for the Cards, not love of the man.

"Hey man, we consolidated the supplies in the south warehouse and locked up."

"Good; let's do another once-over then head out. It's getting too close to curfew and I want to get back before then."

One of the men stopped right in front of Joel, blocking the door out into the open area. Tess looked at Joel with raised eyebrows, clearly asking him to decide on the next move. Quietly, Joel's fingers closed around an empty glass bottle that was lying on top of the packing crates.

"What about Robert? Who's he staying with tonight? Guy's too paranoid to stay here tonight all by himself!"

"Fuck if I know. We'll check in with the others and figure something out…" The second man walked off, ascending a set of metal stairs into the upper level of another warehouse. Silence fell aside from the guard in the doorway muttering about Robert's cowardice and issues with trust. Joel used this opportunity to sneak up behind him and strangle him, earning a muttered word of approval from Tess.

A quick sweep of the warehouse opposite the exit from the first building found nothing of interest other than piles of useless air conditioning units (although Joel supposed their component parts could be cannibalised into something useful). It was obvious that the more of Robert's seemingly-inexhaustible muscle were in a two-storey warehouse at the other side of the open area. There were two obvious entrances – a ground-level loading gate and what looked like an office entrance at the top of a set of external metal stairs.

Joel didn't like the look of the ground-level entrance. There was too great a chance of sentries on the upper level turning it into a shooting gallery with him and Tess as the ducks. Carefully, the big Texan ascended the external metal fire stairs, wary of causing even the slightest noise that could give away his presence.

At the top of the stairs, Joel peeked around the corner. The area looked like it used to be a workshop of some kind. There was an auto-lathe and racks of tools and drill-heads all around the walls (all long since rusted into uselessness, of course). At the far end of the room was a door leading out into the main warehouse area with a denim-clad guy with dirty blonde hair in a ponytail and nervously handling a snub-nosed revolver of some kind. The guard looked around and suddenly set off for the door out onto the emergency stairs. Joel braced himself, the fingers of his right hand finding the handle of the shiv at the small of his back.

Joel shot Tess a look over his shoulder, clearly communicating the need for silence and then pressed himself against the outside wall as the man strode unhurriedly out onto the landing at the top of the metal stairs. The man didn't get a chance to scream – Joel's hand slapped over his mouth and used the hold to yank him sideways off of his feet. The big Texan's shiv slammed into the guard's throat, tearing open vein and artery alike. Keeping his hand over the dying man's mouth to muffle any final cry, Joel waited until he had stopped flailing about and then lowered the corpse to the landing. Then he nodded at a grim Tess and the two snuck into the workshop.

The door into the warehouse confirmed that Joel had been right to be cautious earlier. A mezzanine with a metal wall ran around the first floor of the warehouse area. It was patrolled by two pistol-packing guards who were circling to and from two small office spaces either side of the workshop door. Had they gone in through the roller-shutters, they would have indeed been in a death trap where the guards had all the advantages of high ground and cover.

Fortunately, for an experienced bushwhacker like Joel, the design of the mezzanine offered several advantages. The first guy walked into the right-hand office and never saw Joel, hidden in blind corner behind the door, until the smuggler's huge arm seized him and dragged him down.

The second guard was a bit of a problem. He had sat down in one of the moth-eaten office chairs in the left-hand office and was slowly spinning it around whilst cleaning under his fingernails with an ugly-looking basic shiv, his revolver in his lap. Joel decided against trying to time his approach to get around him. Instead he sneaked through the left-hand office again to the stairs leading down to the main floor of the warehouse. Joel considered the third guard, standing in front of the open roller-shutters. He pulled out the bottle he grabbed earlier and tossed it expertly into a blind corner (all that playing ball with Tommy and Sarah having paid off, it seemed).

The loud crash of shattering glass broke the tense silence. "Hey! Did you hear that?" The guard by the shutter yelled.

The other guard walked out onto the stretch of mezzanine in between the offices. "Yeah! Check it out! Stay frosty! That psycho motherfucker Joel and his bitch are supposed to be on the way!"

Tess, who had been still hiding in the workshop, didn't need a special invitation with an adversary's unguarded back right in front of her. She leapt up like a striking cat, slapped a hand over the guy's mouth and carved open his throat with her butterfly knife.

Joel ducked back into the left-hand office to grab another bottle that was on a window ledge and then snuck down the stairs, intending to blind-side the remaining guard who had paced out of sight behind one of the piles of crates containing now-useless consumer electronics. "Ah, I don't see nothin'," the guard called out. "I definitely heard something fall over though! Jones, Harry, do you see anythin' from up there?" Naturally, the other two guards didn't answer, being dead. "Jones? Harry? This isn't funny guys!"

 _Shit_. Joel tensed and halted. The guard sounded scared and Joel knew perfectly well, having spent a long time hunting the world's most dangerous game, that this would make him wary and ready for a fight at a moment's notice. A thousand and one possible tactics flew through the Texan's mind as the guard warily stepped around the side of the crate, leading with his gun.

Joel didn't hesitate but flung the bottle in his hand into the man's face. It shattered on impact and the guard squealed in agony, dropping his gun as his hands instinctively snapped up to cover his lacerated face. Joel lunged forwards, grabbed the guy's head and slammed it down onto his right knee. The guard tumbled to the ground and Joel finished the matter, bringing his right foot crashing down on the guy's ruined face and feeling the man's skull give under the force.

Turning his back on the guard, who was no longer of any concern, he jogged back up the stairs to meet Tess at the workshop door. She was looking on dispassionately as she examined the second guard's revolver. "Robert's got a fuckin' army here!" she spat. "We should have hired a couple of bodies to bring along!"

Joel shrugged. "Ah, more bodies would have just slowed us down."

Tess laughed. "Yeah, I guess you're right."

Joel walked into the right-hand office and found the second guard's shiv and a medical kit sitting on the desk in front of the chair where he had been sitting; he picked up both. The shiv went into the sheath on the back of his belt – No point putting wear and tear on his good, crafted shiv when he could use these slum blades folk left lying around. They weren't good for much use but they only needed to work _once_. A pause to pick up the first guard's full magazine from his 9mm pistol and the two smugglers walked down to the main floor of the warehouse.

Tess gestured at a closed set of roller shutters. "The docks are this way. C'mon; let's finish this."

* * *

The wharf area was huge with stacks of crates, empty 30- and 60-foot shipping containers and a honest-to-Neptune dry-dock with some kind of rusted hulk of a ship inside that must have been under repair when the Outbreak hit and was left there to decay with the work crews either dead, Infected or hiding in the Zone waiting for the world to become sane again. Most important, in Joel's eyes, were the dozen or so guards and workers wandering around the area, some armed with guns, others carrying pickaxe handles as makeshift clubs. Tess was right; looked like Robert had somehow found himself an _army_.

Speaking of Robert… "There's our boy!" Tess hissed. Robert was talking with one of his men. Joel never quite figured out what it was about the black marketer that seemed so _weasel_ -like. Was it the tattered zip-up cardigan? Was it the greasy black hair, tied back in a ponytail as if he was trying to look cool or daring? No, perhaps it was the watery, shifty blue eyes that never really seemed to meet your own but were always darting around.

Clearly confident in the number of men protecting this location, Robert sauntered off into the covered dry-dock area as if the owned the place… Which, let's face it, he pretty much did. "Cocky son-of-a-bitch!" Tess muttered dismissively.

Joel hid his smirk, remembering that they had a game on. "Let's go wrap this up."

The two smugglers ghosted down from the loading dock at the back of the warehouse and dropped down behind some of the crates. "There are a lot of them," Tess whispered. "We need to be smart about this or we'll be torn to pieces!"

Joel's experience eye tracked left and right. The best cover he could see was to pass through several shipping containers that had been left open to the left. To the right, the area was open and there were at least three guards standing in a group by the entrance to the dry-dock shed that faced the warehouse.

Joel gestured for Tess to go right and get into cover behind a set of crates closer to the dry-dock building. From there, she could cover him as he made his approach from the side. Then Joel darted down towards the far end of the wharf area, passing through two opened containers and picking up a shiv someone had left lying on top of an empty fuel oil barrel.

At the far end of the wharf area, Joel emerged from a container behind one guard who was sauntering along the side wall of a locked-off warehouse (the FEDRA biohazard door seals making Joel wonder just what nightmares it might contain). The smuggler grabbed the guard and wrung his neck silently before picking up the wooden stave he had been using as a weapon.

Sneaking along the line of containers towards the dry-dock shed, Joel considered his next move carefully. He dropped down behind a set of crates just next to the side entrance to the shed and strained his ears for clues as to his foes' positions. "Shipments have been dry for a long time," Joel heard one of the guards remark to his buddies by the other entrance.

"Yeah, well we lost our contacts in the north, lost our contacts in the south. Shit. I don't know who's left out there to sell us stuff. Guess this is why we're taking shitty protection jobs."

"Fucking Robert! He'd better be good for what he promised us!" a third voice snapped.

 _Guess Robert isn't so popular with his 'army'_ , Joel thought with a secret smirk. One thing to hire men to fight for you; it was something else entirely to have their _loyalty_.

"Even if he is, so what? I'm telling you, brother, this Zone is _done for_! We'd better start thinking of an exit strategy!"

"You're insane! Even _thinking_ of going outside?"

"Plenty of other smugglers do it! What do you think's gonna happen here when the supplies run out?" Joel's eyebrows went up, surprised to hear his own darkest premonitions so baldly echoed. The fact that he wasn't the only one to see the signs only hardened his intention to somehow talk Tess into bailing out of Boston whilst it was still possible to do so.

"I'd prefer to take my chances in here," the first voice muttered unhappily.

Joel peeked from behind the crates and watched as the pow-wow broke up. Two of the guards sauntered off towards the loading dock ( _and towards Tess_ ) whilst the other walked the other way and took up a position almost right in front of Joel. The smuggler checked and didn't like the odds. If he took out the guy in front of him, his buddy by the other entrance would have an age to start shooting and the third guard would hold Tess back long enough to stop her from covering her partner's fight.

Joel ghosted out from behind the crates, following a wide loop towards the other entrance. Darting from crate to crate, he snuck up behind the guard standing out in the open, yanked him behind a crate and used one of the crude shivs he'd been finding lying around recently to tear open his throat. The weapon snapped immediately (no great surprise; whoever had crafted them didn't know shit about reinforcement or sharpening).

" _Niiice_!" Tess murmured flirtatiously from behind the crate opposite him.

Joel decided that he would consider her behaviour later. Instead, he snuck up behind the other guard on this side of the entrances to the shed. He seized the man around the throat and clapped the muzzle of his pistol to the side of the man's head. Surprisingly the guard at the other entrance didn't react to the loud 'clank' as his buddy's club dropped to the ground.

"L… Let's be cool, brother!" Joel recognised the frantic whispering voice. This was the man who had been advocating getting out of Boston. "You got me; now let's not do anything…" Having got the guy behind the nearest crate, Joel slammed the butt of his pistol against the man's temple and sent him down for the count. He couldn't understand why he didn't finish the guy; maybe he appreciated his Survivor's instincts.

"I just love watching you work!" Tess said with a lethal grin.

Joel noticed something sticking out of the unconscious guard's jacket - an old school exercise book. The guy was keeping a _journal_! From reading the most recent entries it was clear that Robert had been big on promises but short on Cards to pay his newfound security detail. Joel also found out how he'd got them: Their most recent attempt to smuggle stuff in by boat had been intercepted by FEDRA but Robert had been able to bribe the military into letting the gang go. No great surprise; low-level FEDRA soldiers didn't get much in the way of luxuries either and an extra ration card or two was a nice bonus. The smuggler wondered if he was threatening to get the same tame soldiers to arrest his newfound muscle if they started getting ideas of striking out on their own again.

 _Back to_ work, he counselled himself. Joel gestured to a stack of crates just inside the nearest entranceway to the "Move up to those crates and cover me."

Joel moved back around to the side entrance and came up behind the remaining entranceway guard. He yanked the man backward and into the shadow of some shipping crates stacked up inside the dry-dock shed and wrung his neck efficiently.

" _Psst_!" Joel looked over at Tess, hiding behind a nearby set of crates. The woman held up a finger, made a 'walking man' gesture and pointed to the other side of the shed. Another guard; probably looking towards the entrance and probably had a nice wide and clear field of fire. Fortunately, there was an open shipping container that was like a tunnel leading to the other side of the shed. Joel sneaked down it and looked out through a side door to see…

"THERE!"

 _Shit_!

A second guard was standing with Robert by the entrance to a set of pre-fabricated office units at the far end of the open area. Joel ducked back into the container as at least three shots zipped through the entranceway. The 'clang' of their impact on the far wall was deafening in the enclosed space.

" _Get the fucker_!" Another volley of shots kept Joel pinned down.

"Hey! _Assholes_!" Behind her cover, Tess opened fire; she couldn't see the second guard but she could see the first and give Joel some assistance. Her shots tore a foot-long splinter out of the crate behind which he had ducked. This gave Joel a moment to duck out and fire two shots at the second guard by the office door. At this range, the likelihood of a hit was low and Joel wasn't particularly surprised to miss; the point was the gunman ducked down, giving Joel an opening as the first guard turned towards him to fire at him. The first shot hit the crate but the next three caught him the chest and throat, sending him down for good. Unfortunately, that had taken too long. The second guard was up and shooting again. Most of his shots went wild but one sliced across the side of Joel's abdomen, fortunately only spilling padding from the armour. Another slammed into his left upper chest, shattering the pressboard 'plate' under the cloth of the slum armour and digging into his flesh.

Despite the shooting pain through his left arm, Joel managed to back-pedal into cover. He swapped clips as Tess came up behind a set of crates shielding the corner around the end of the dry-dock itself and fired a wild brace of shots. This opened up a moment for Joel to charge forwards into cover behind the set of crates the man he'd just shot had been using for cover.

"Odds are against ya! Not too late to bug out, pal!" Tess shouted out.

The guard clearly wasn't smart although he clearly was either brave or too scared to stop fighting. "Fuck you, bitch! That's my buddies you and yours have been killing!"

Tess ducked around the side of her crate to take a shot and the guard popped up to shoot at her. Joel was ready and began firing at the guard as soon as he showed his face. The first shot hit the wall of the office prefab behind him but the next one went into his right eye and the last into the middle of his face.

Joel reloaded again, putting in his last fresh clip and snatching the clip out of the dead first guard's gun before standing up. "That office!" Tess snapped, gesturing at the prefab with her gun. "Robert must have run in there when the shooting started! Let's not wait around."

Joel shook his head and raised a hand in caution. "Let's make sure we won't have any of his 'hired help' coming up our asses first!"

This caution was justified. As Joel stepped past the edge of the stack of crates at the top of the dry dock, a scared-looking _kid_ swinging a pickaxe handle lunged out at Joel with a high, terrified battle cry. The makeshift club slammed into Joel's chest but the makeshift armour took most of the impact. The kid backpedalled and tried a head-shot instead under which Joel ducked as he shoulder-charged the kid, knocking him back against the safety rail and sending his weapon tumbling from his hand. Joel came upright and laid a massive haymaker right to the kid's jaw that (thanks to the knuckledusters) nearly shattered his jaw, span him half around and offered his unkempt hair as a convenient handhold for the big smuggler to smash his face into the safety rail.

"Two more!" Tess yelled behind Joel. He turned to see two more of Robert's seemingly-inexhaustible legion of muscle charging towards them, one firing a semi-automatic pistol wildly and the other with a pickaxe handle, raised for an overhead smash. Tess lined up on the gunman and sent four slugs his way, making him dive behind the crates further up the side of the shed. She ducked back and started reloading.

" _I'm gonna kill you, you mutha…_ " the charging club-wielding guard was yelling. Joel met him half-way, leading with his own bludgeon and using it to block the guard's downward swing. Both wooden staves shattered from the impact but Joel was expecting that; he used the moment's distraction to kick the guard in the abdomen; this had little effect, the man was wearing the vest portion of some old-style police riot armour. The dark-skinned man lashed out at Joel with a wild punch that impacted in the centre of his chest armour, causing more damage to the guard's fist than Joel. The smuggler responded with a tightly controlled one-two that sent blood and teeth flying into the air.

The gunman pocked his head up, aiming his gun to support his buddy but had clearly forgotten Tess, who was positioned and braced; she put two bullets a dime's width apart into his forehead and he went down. Simultaneously, Joel drove his dancing partner's face into the concrete floor with a pile-driving stomp that shattered every bone in his face.

With a pained grunt, Joel turned his back on his fallen foe and picked up the club dropped by the stupid kid that had tacked him earlier. "Okay, _now_ we move. This shoot-out's gonna have every soldier in the area come runnin' especially as Robert's been makin' nice with them!"

Tess had just recovered the gunman's clip and grimaced at the mess that had been made of Joel's chest. Fortunately, most of the craters were in the armour but there was no mistaking the bullet wound in his left shoulder. "Get that shit off," she growled, pointing at Joel's armour. "We need to deal with that before your bleed out or get an infection!"

"Tess, I ain't needed motherin' for about forty damn…"

Joel hissed in pain as Tess pushed the muzzle of her Walther into the bullet wound. "Bullshit," was her opinion. With a growl Joel yanked off the armour. Tess frowned as she looked at Joel's shoulder wound. Then the _god-damned psycho bitch went and popped the bullet out as if it were a zit_! She slapped a medical kid into Joel's hand and glared at him until he unwound enough to disinfect and dress the wound before pulling back on the damaged but still-serviceable armoured vest.

As Joel busied himself with that task, Tess scooped up the magazine from the fallen guard by the door's pistol (as well as a ration bar that had probably been his intended lunch). She then pulled out a shiv that she'd picked up out on the wharf and used it to jimmy open the locked door of the office.

Maybe it was a desire to prove that he wasn't so badly hurt as to no longer be able to make a contribution but Joel was the first into the reception area of the prefab. A small table with a couple of chairs showed that someone had been playing cards not too long ago. There was only one door. Joel opened it and was confronted by a terrified Robert, standing behind a paperwork-strewn desk and pointing a semi-auto at his face. The smuggler ducked behind the door frame as, with a screamed order to stay back, Robert started shooting wildly, bullets clipping the door frame and slamming into the far wall.

Tess dived across the opening (dodging a few shots in the process) and came upright on the other side of the doorframe. "We just want to talk, Robert!" she called out.

There was a series of clicks that indicated Robert was reloading his gun. "We got nothin' to talk about you cock-sucking whore!"

The insult flowed off of Tess's back as if it were unuttered. She'd been called worse. "This ain't helping you, Robert! Put your gun down!"

" _Go fuck yourself!_ " Robert starting shooting randomly again; his gun quickly ran dry and, with a snarl of mixed rage and terror, he flung the useless weapon out the door before the two smugglers heard rapid footsteps.

"He's running!" Tess snapped. "This way!"

Joel was already around the doorframe as Robert dived out of a side door. "Robert!" he roared as he power-strode down the short corridor and kicked open the door out onto the streets on the other side of the dry-dock.

There was a short pursuit during which Robert tried to lose his pursuers in a set of abandoned warehouses. Joel jumped through a window (the glass of which had long since shattered to nothing) and saw Robert a short distance down the alleyway, struggling futilely with a locked metal gate.

Tess clambered out next to Joel, her face suddenly shining with sadistic delight at seeing her quarry finally trapped. "Hello Robert," she purred.

"Tess, Joel," Robert said nervously, stepping away from the gate and shifting his weight from foot to foot. He was clearly weighing up the odds of success if he tried running past the two blooded and furious smugglers and not liking the numbers that were coming up. "Um… Yeah. Look, no hard feelings? Y'know… About the 'cocksucker' thing?"

"Aw no, none at all!" Tess responded as she pulled the pickaxe handle she'd grabbed off of one of Robert's former guards off of its loop on her backpack. Robert's only frayed nerve broke and he rabbited down the alleyway. Tess's expression didn't change as she caught him under the knee with a low sweep of her club and sent the black marketer crashing to the pavement with a cry of pain. "We missed you at the payment meet," she spat.

Robert tried crawling but even trying to move his likely-broken leg was agony. "L… Look, whatever shit people have been telling about you about me, it's a lie, okay? I just want to say that…"

Tess cut off the flow of bullshit. "The _guns_ , Robert: seven nine-millimetre pistols, a pair of double-barrels and three three-oh-eight hunting rifles, all fully loaded. You want to tell me what happened to those _and_ to the two-fifty Ration Cards that they were worth?"

Robert broke out in a cold sweat, making Joel frown. Whatever was going on here, someone had put the frighteners on the black marketer and whoever it was, they must have been bad news to make him more scared of them than he was of Tess and Joel. "Look," Robert stammered. "Yeah, look, I'll talk but… it's complicated, alright?"

"Then _uncomplicate_ it," Joel suggested, loping over towards the fallen man.

Robert started to babble as Joel closed in. "Just hear me out on this! I got to…!" Joel kicked him in the face, hearing the cartilage in his nose snap. Robert shouted in pain. Joel knelt beside the black marketer and grabbed his arm, pulling his right elbow joint back against its normal direction. Robert cried out in agony. "Fuck! Stop it! _Stop it! I'll talk!_ "

"Quit your squirming," Tess spat in disgust. She scowled and bent down, getting in the man's face. "You were saying?"

"I SOLD THEM!" Robert squealed.

There was a long pause as Tess and Joel exchanged a horrified look. They'd half expected this but they still couldn't believe that Robert had screwed them over so thoroughly. " _Excuse me_?" she finally squeezed out.

"I… I sold them. Look, I didn't have much choice here! I owed someone! It was that or they'd be usin' my hide as a shower curtain!"

Tess somehow restrained her impulse to cave in the weasel's skull. "You owed _us_ Robert! It looks to me like you backed the wrong runner here!"

"Look, you'll get your Cards anyway!" Robert babbled. "The cargo's gone but who gives a shit about that? I'll get you your Cards! Give me… a week! No more…!"

Tess's response was cold and dry as she stood, her eyes filled with rage. "Y'know, I might have trusted you to do that before you _fucking put a hit on me_!"

A dead silence fell as Robert realised just how much Tess knew about his attempts to tie off the loose end that she represented. Finally, the black marker managed to murmur a reply with a sick, terrified smile. "Um… Look, Tess! It was nothin' personal, 'kay? It was just… _business_?"

Tess hissed in annoyance. "Who did you sell our cargo to?"

" _I can't tell you_! God, don't you _understand_? Look, I need two days! _Three_ at the most and…!"

With an impatient growl, Joel hauled back, dislocating Robert's elbow with a horrible sound of snapping bone and tearing tendons. Robert screamed in agony and voided his bladder. "Let's try this again!" Tess snapped. " _Who has our cargo_?"

"THE FIREFLIES! I OWED THE FIREFLIES! FOR FUCK'S SAKE, YOU KNOW THAT _NO-ONE_ SAYS 'NO' TO MARLENE WHEN SHE 'ASKS NICELY'!"

Joel released his whimpering prisoner and clambered to his feet, his face ashen. Tess didn't look much better. Robert was right: In the underworld of the Quarantine Zone, the Firefly insurgents were _the_ serious power. You fucked them over at your own peril and, when they wanted to do 'business', you took the price they offered, no matter how bad and were grateful that you didn't end up flayed alive and left hanging upside-down from a light pole and bleeding out the slow way.

Robert took the tiny reprieve as an opportunity to fill the air with more bullshit. "Look, I hear the military are really moving in on them in a big way! They are… well, shit, they're mostly all _dead_ right now. The way I see it, the three of us… hell just the _two of you_ … could wipe out the few that are left. Then you take your cargo and whatever else you want from their equipment dumps and I'll sell the rest! It's a great deal! What could go wrong? Huh? How about…?"

Robert's cajoling voice was cut off when Tess put a 9mm round through his forehead and then another, just to make her feelings plain. "Yeah. Fuck over the country's second biggest military power after FEDRA. That's a stupid fuckin' idea, Robert!"

Joel shot the dead man a brief, contemptuous glance, then looked at his partner in a worried way. "Well, now what?"

"Now…?" Tess sighed and ran a hand through her sweaty hair. "Now we get our merchandise back."

Joel's thick eyebrows effortlessly reached his hairline. "How we gonna do that?"

"Don't rush me! I'm makin' this shit up as I go right now." Tess rapped out a humourless chuckle and rubbed the bridge of her nose before continuing. "Look, we'll figure out some way to explain it to them; maybe work out some kind of trade. The first step is that we've got to find us a Firefly."

At that moment, a chocolate-smooth voice with an edge of charismatic humour spoke out. "Well, I can tell you now that you won't need to look far!"

Tess and Joel's heads snapped around to the speaker. It was an African-American woman, slightly shorter than Tess, with her long, braided silver-shot black hair tied back in a messy dreadlocked ponytail at the back of her head. She was holding a Beretta semi-automatic pistol and had a hand clenched to a gunshot wound in the right side of her abdomen.

"You wanted a Firefly?" Joel remarked. "Well, here ya go. The Queen Firefly herself!"

 _To be continued…_


	5. Summer - The Cargo

**The Last of Us**

Based on the story by Neil Drukmann

 **Disclaimer**

 _The Last of Us_ was written for Naughty Dog on behalf of Sony Computer Entertainment by Neil Drukmann and Bruce Straley. It is a trademark property of Sony Computer Entertainment. This is a not-for-profit fan-work for free distribution through the world-wide web. No infringement of trademark or copyright is intended.

 **Author's Notes**

I haven't seen a decent 'straight' novelisation of the game story so far and it was this that led me to start work on this. However, as I continued, I decided that, whilst I will be avoiding OCs, I wasn't content to just turn Neil Drukmann's fine story into a narrative story form. There was one change about which I had lots of ideas. With encouragement of a few other fans of the game, I decided to take this story in this new direction. I hope that I won't be changing any of the key points and themes but I really, really wanted to make this change.

You'll see what I mean in time.

Censor – M – Violence, profanity and description of death and disease

 **Act 1 – Summer**

 **Chapter 4 – The Cargo**

Marlene Stack, leader of Boston's cell of the Fireflies, indeed possibly (or so scuttlebutt said) the supreme leader of the insurgent movement that had sworn to cure the CBI and overthrow FEDRA, leant against the wall of the alleyway. Under her dark skin tone, she was pale. She'd clearly been in a fight and was not on top of her game. Yet, despite being alone, wounded, outnumbered and outgunned, there was something about her that simply controlled the alleyway and left Tess and Joel feeling a strange sense that it was _they_ who were at the terrorist's mercy rather than vice-versa. Marlene glared at them before snapping out a question. "What are you two gun-runners doing in this part of town? This isn't your normal haunt!"

Tess shrugged; guarded in the face of a very, very dangerous woman. "Business," she said elliptically. "You don't look so hot over there."

Marlene ignored the implied question in Tess's statement. "Where's Robert?"

Tess smirked and gestured to the bloodied corpse behind her. Marlene sighed in a disappointed way, as if confronting the harmless mess created by a particularly retarded kindergartener rather than the remains of a man who had just been tortured and executed. "I needed him _alive_ , Tess. I had a _use_ for him."

Tess hid her wince at the thought of having inadvertently become a setback to Marlene's plans. Instead, she decided to try to take charge of the conversation. "Marlene, I've got some bad news for you. The guns he sold you recently? They weren't his to sell. I want them back."

Marlene's smile was slightly patronising as she shook her head like a mother confronting a cute but spoilt child. "Ah, Theresa! Now, you _know_ things don't work like that."

"The hell it don't!" Tess responded, vibrating with outrage.

"You see… I don't give a _shit_ that Robert sold me a cargo that belonged to someone else. I paid, up front and in good faith." Tess was about to reply but Marlene casually raised a hand to silence her. "I'm not an unreasonable woman, Tess. I'm willing to do business with you but, if you want those weapons, then I need something from you to cover my costs."

Tess sagged slightly. _Here it comes_ , she thought. She just hoped that Marlene's idea of a 'fair price' wasn't more than what the cargo could fetch on the market. "Okay, how many cards are we talkin' here?"

Marlene laughed mockingly. "Oh, Theresa! My counterfeiters can print me as many cards as I want when I want them! No, I need a very special service carried out that requires someone with… _a special skill-set_. I need something smuggled out of the Quarantine Zone. You do that for me… and you'll get your cargo back. You'll get it _and_ interest accrued."

Joel stepped forward as Tess considered that offer. "The way I hear it, the military have practically wiped you guys out in this town. So… how do we know that this payment still exists?"

Marlene suddenly lost a bit of her shine as she looked inward, maybe thinking of comrades-in-arms who had died in recent fights. "I can't deny that," she admitted at last. "Look, I will show you the payment before I hand over the cargo."

Suddenly a voice echoed from the warehouse Joel and Tess had passed through just minutes earlier. " _Spread out! There are only so many ways out of this area that the outlaws could have taken!_ "

" _Yes sir! Green team, take the first storeroom! Blue team the second!_ "

" _Sir yes sir!_ "

"Sounds like the military is taking an interest in _your_ handiwork too!" Marlene said, suddenly appearing alert and fearful. "I gotta move. People, this is a one-time offer: what will it be?"

Tess and Joel exchanged a wordless glance, both knowing instantly what the other was thinking. "I want to see those guns!"

Marlene shot Tess a look of pure challenge. "You wanna do that; you gotta come with me _now_!"

" _Sir, this door's locked!_ "

" _Get the battering ram!_ "

Tess grimaced. " _Shit_! Time to move!" She and Joel raced down the alleyway in Marlene's wake

* * *

Suddenly, the whole Quarantine Zone was taking on a very menacing demeanour to Joel's mind. Robert had been right; the military seemed to be on full war footing. As the two smugglers and their insurgent leader guide fled through the back alleyways, every street that they could see had masses of HMMWVs and four-axle heavy trucks packed with troops racing down them. The air was filled with the crackle of small-arms fire and the occasional explosion.

Marlene led the two smugglers up onto a set of roofs that looked down across what was once the harbour district before the Outbreak. Suddenly a large explosion sent a massive yellow-white fireball into the air. "Jesus! Was that your people?" Tess blurted.

"What's left of them." Marlene sounded understandably depressed. "The military have been hitting us hard and I've got everyone who can still fight spread out on hit-and-run missions to cause as much havoc as possible; keep the bastards disorganised and unable to hunt us in a methodical way." She shrugged. "Why do you think I have to turn to 'outside contractors'? We're making a fighting withdrawal here and I don't have the manpower to spare, even for priority missions!"

Marlene led her two 'outside contractors' along the zigzagging roof of a factory. Joel decided to ask a question that had been bothering him. "Things have been pretty quiet recently. Why would the military upset the apple-cart now?"

Marlene's voice deepened with frustrated anger. "Boston's pretty much a busted flush; it's only a matter of time before the supply lines this far out east collapse so we've been trying to pull out quietly. FEDRA aren't interested in letting us vanish and losing their excuse for all the shortages. They've been trying to rile us up and start a fight for a while!"

That didn't surprise Joel in the slightest. "'Trying'? Looks to me like they succeeded!"

That dig obviously got through Marlene's usually unflappable calm. " _We're trying to defend ourselves from an unjustified attack whilst we were peacefully disengaging!_ " she snapped. Joel smirked and raised his hands in a gesture of surrender. Marlene growled and led the other two through a set of dormer windows into the upstairs store-room of an abandoned factory building.

As they descended a wide set of stairs to what was once a roadway, Tess couldn't help but notice Marlene's flagging strength and the way she was favouring her wounded side. "Hey! How are you holding up Marlene?"

"I'll live. I've had worse."

* * *

The three outlaws were crouched behind an old concrete lane divider and looking across a small flood-basin or dock area. At the other side, a blue-uniformed FEDRA soldier, wearing the light equipment of a military policeman, guarded a door into the sub-structure of the warehouse area that ran overhead.

Marlene pointed to that door. "See that? That's our way out."

Joel frowned. You never got one soldier on lone guard duty and the fact that Joel couldn't see the others didn't mean anything good. "I am _not_ a fan of these odds."

"We can sneak by them," Marlene insisted. The woman smirked, temporarily forgetting the spreading ache of her injuries. "Of course, I know that 'sneak' isn't exactly your style!"

"Cute," Tess muttered before continuing more loudly. "Lead the way; we'll see how it goes."

The first step was to get across an open space overlooking the basin area to a set of stairs leading to the upper level to the left. This wasn't anywhere near as difficult as Joel had feared. He, Tess and Marlene darted from divider to divider. The guard on the opposite side of the dock, by the door, didn't seem to be particularly interested in keeping a lookout for anything. Maybe they didn't think that there was there any threat in the area. If that was the case, well, they were about to get a rude awakening.

At the top of the stairs, the mystery of the location of the rest of the soldiers from this unit was resolved. Joel, Marlene and Tess dropped down as low as they could behind a stack of tarpaulin-covered drain-pipes. On the other side two soldiers stood in a doorway. "You picked the wrong day to fuck with us!" one of the soldiers, a sergeant, snarled.

"Go screw yourselves," replied a bitter voice responded from inside the building.

The sergeant didn't bother to reply. He nodded at the other soldier who dragged out a bound man with a sack over his head and dragged him away to the centre of the big handling area built over the basin. "Hey, I missed all the action!" a mocking voice declared from inside the building.

"Justice waits for no-one private," was the sergeant's emotionless response

"Ah, whatever," the unseen private griped quietly.

Marlene tensed; she was clearly ready to jump up and intervene as the struggling man was dragged away. Joel put a hand on the dark-skinned woman's shoulder and he watched as she looked down, her expression nauseous but nodded consent. This was not the moment to start a firefight against unknown odds. After a long moment, she looked up again and leaned over, her lips touching Joel's ear. "I've got this one; you get behind the other one."

Joel nodded. Staying low, he crab-walked through an outer door into what looked like a tool storage room. One the other side of the room was a second door into an internal corridor. _Marlene knows this place_ , he noted to himself. It was probably a Firefly hideout or at least somewhere she passed through regularly. Quietly, he slid over a metal office desk blocking the corridor and came up behind the unnamed private.

A shift in the light at the other end of room told Joel that Marlene was tackling the sergeant. "What the…?" The private's shocked tone confirmed it but, before the soldier could grab his weapon, Joel was upon him, his hand crushing the soldier's wind-pipe.

Marlene folded her knife and, with Tess, sneaked into this new room which looked like a workshop to Joel's eye. "Stay quiet!" Marlene hissed. Joel had noted that she'd taken the sergeant's sidearm, a heavy, sophisticated 45-calibre semi-automatic that smugglers knew as the 'Enforcer'. When neither Joel nor Tess objected, she also took the magazine out of the private's Enforcer.

Why didn't Joel or Tess take one? Well, unlike Marlene, they didn't have a death sentence hanging over their heads. Having a weapon that could have only been taken from a soldier's dead body would be a lot harder to explain than a still-illegal but otherwise pre-proscription FEDRA-regulation 9mm semi-automatic pistol.

Tess leaned in to murmur to Joel. "Okay, there are at least two more of them; stay sharp."

Carefully, the three outlaws moved through the building. Joel, ever the scavenger, saw some stuff that caught his eye on a tool rack and snatched it up before heading through an internal door into the last room along the internal corridor. Tess peeked through the connecting door into the corridor. "We're clear!" she hissed.

Marlene peeked over the top of the windowsill. "Make that three… plus the one by the door on the level below. Christ, they're out in numbers today!"

Joel looked over the top too. There were indeed two sentries in sight, one standing almost in front of the window. He moved to the next window along. From this angle he could see two more guards, one standing behind a man-height stack of crates under a tarpaulin. There was a third guard looking at something out in the handling area. Suddenly the third guard straightened, drew his Enforcer and put a double-tap into something on the ground. No prizes for guessing what that was. "Fucking good riddance," the solder muttered before striding back to take up a guarding position by a gap in the waist-high far wall of the handling area, as the second guard walked down the stairs beyond, leading down to the door that was the way out. Marlene squeezed her eyes shut and Joel gave her the dignity of not staring to try to see if she was crying. Credit where it was due, she gave a shit about what happened to her people.

Joel quietly slid over the sill of the far window. The guard standing in front of him never suspected a thing until Joel's right hand closed around his throat, choking away his life at the end of five panic-filled seconds. Joel sneaked back to the window. "I'm going along the right side of those crates; you ladies take the left and try to find some cover to give me flank cover. Tess nodded; Marlene didn't seem to like the idea of being the one taking orders for once but she obviously didn't have any ideas of her own and seemed inclined to co-operate for now.

Joel came up to the corner of the crates (which, alarmingly, were marked with biohazard symbols – what the fuck was stored in these things?). He peeked around. The way he saw it, there was no way to grab the guard ahead of him without the other one seeing. Tess and Marlene were about to start trying to edge around the left side of the stack and Joel came to a split-second decision. He jumped up and grabbed the guard around the throat with his left arm, clapping the muzzle of his Colt to the man's temple.

"Shit!" the guard yelped.

"Let's keep this nice and quiet," Joel's growl could have frozen a vat of water at twenty paces

The other guard drew his gun and levelled it at the hostage situation taking place right in front of him. "Drop the gun, put your hands up and back away, asshole!" he snarled.

"Hey! _Look to the light_!" The soldier turned to the noise and swung his gun around towards the new threat. Joel couldn't see it but, from hearing the Firefly battle-cry, he _knew_ that Marlene was standing in full view of the other soldier. It was already too late for the man to do anything about it, though. Marlene's stolen Enforcer barked four times, sending the soldier staggering back, four red impacts blooming in the centre of his chest.

" _God damn it_! So much for ' _subtle_ '!" Joel knew that they were on a short count-down now. He slammed the guard's head into the side of the crates, feeling the bone give fatally from the impact. Joel then raced across the handling area, pulling his pickaxe handle off of his back as he did so. In a crouch, he slid backwards into the wall at the top of the stairs just as he heard hurried footfalls racing up the stairs.

" _US Army! Freeze_!" The guard threw himself around the corner at the top of the stairs, leading with his gun. It was a dumb move, straight out of the book titled 'How to Walk Into an Ambush'. He never saw Joel in the blind spot behind the stairwell's shore-side wall before the pickaxe handle slammed into his gut, bending him over double. A second blow to the back of the head sent him to his knees and an upwards reverse golf swing to the face threw him backwards into the wall looking out over Boston Harbour before he crumpled lifelessly into a heap at its base.

Joel turned from his latest fight in a fury. "What the _fuck_ was that Marlene?" Much to his surprise, the insurgent leader wasn't standing where she had been when she blew away the guard. Instead, she was kneeling by a quartet of bound, hooded bodies strung out in a line across the middle of the handling area. Joel walked over to her.

"Wally… Mike… Kayley… Sam. Damn it! Damn it to _hell_! You deserved better!"

"Your boys?" Joel couldn't help but ask.

Marlene made a sound somewhere between a laugh and a sob. "Wally and Mike, yeah. Kayley and Sam…? Hell, all they did was _live_ in this place and look the other way when we walked past! These _bastards_ are killing _bystanders_ for just being in the same _place_ as my people!" Marlene stood up and glared at Joel with fire in her eyes. "Seeing this you still want to be _neutral_ , Joel? Still don't think it's _your_ fight or any of _your_ concern…?"

" _Marlene_!" The woman stopped her denunciation and glared at Tess for the interruption. "You can't help them by cussing out me and Joel. We've got a cargo to go see, yeah?"

Marlene closed her eyes, drew in a deep shuddering breath and then opened her eyes again. "Yeah, you're right; we can talk about this later. Let's get moving."

At the bottom of the bridge, the three outlaws passed through the now-unguarded door. As Joel scanned the storage room within for any obvious threats, Tess and Marlene pushed a heavy set of lockers across the door, blocking it from easy use. "That should hold any back-up that display of 'subtlety' brings running," Tess remarked with an ironic quirk of her eyebrow. "Where to now?"

Marlene finished reloading her looted Enforcer and gestured with it to the room's exit. "This way."

As they set off again, Tess couldn't help but feel a bit of empathy for the other woman. She knew that she might not be able to compartmentalise her rage if she saw people she knew slaughtered either. "Hey!" Marlene looked over. "How you holding' up?"

Marlene managed a tired smile. "I… I'm runnin' on fumes… but I'll make it."

At the bottom of a staircase, the three outlaws had to pass through an alleyway. At that point, they heard something that Joel had been expecting and dreading in equal measure.

" _Attention! Curfew is now in full effect! Any person caught outside without proper authorisation will be arrested and prosecuted!_ " Like all FEDRA announcements, the blandly threatening pre-recorded female voice cycled automatically every few seconds. The streets were now deadly to anyone outside the military.

* * *

"So, what are we smuggling?"

Marlene looked over to Tess from where she was struggling with the door that led out of the commercial kitchen the trio had entered. "I'll show you. Joel, help me with this."

With Joel's weight added to the insurgent's leader's failing strength, the door swung open. Off-balance, Marlene fell through the opening to her knees with a cry of pain, her hand snapping instinctively to her wounded side. "Hey! Watch it!" Joel crouched beside the fallen woman, ready to lend a hand.

"GET THE FUCK AWAY FROM HER!" a very, very young female voice yelled.

Joel looked to his right and saw a short figure in a red tee-shirt lunging towards him with some kind of long, straight-bladed knife. Joel's hand moved to his Colt, holstered in his waistband but Tess was way ahead of him. She caught the small attacker's knife arm before it could descend. The girl looked at her and saw Tess already had her own butterfly knife in a professional knife-fighter's reverse grip. "Bad idea, kiddo," she whispered dangerously, making the other knife-wielder gulp fearfully at the death she could see in the woman's eyes.

Joel helped Marlene to her feet. The insurgent leader looked at the confrontation with a grim smile. "It's okay Tess, you can let her go."

Tess complied and, as she stood back, Joel considered this new acquaintance. The girl was short, barely coming up to his waist; she was probably only aspiring to be a teenager at this point. She was skinny and pale, like most kids of the Quarantine Zone, with shoulder-length dark auburn hair tied back in a simple ponytail. Joel noted with interest the old scar slashing through her right eyebrow. He looked over at Marlene. "Recruiting kind of young, aren't you?"

"She's not one of mine, at least not in the way you're thinking." Marlene hissed as she probed her wound.

"Shit!" The girl folded and pocketed her switchblade and raced over to Marlene, her face displaying open fear for the older woman. "What happened?"

"This… This is nothing; it's fixable. It changes matters though. Ellie… I can't come with you."

The girl stood back, her expression confused with a touch of betrayal mixed in. "Then I'm not going!"

There was a long pause as Marlene stared the girl down. Joel was shocked to see honest-to-goodness _affection_ in the terrorist's gaze. "Ellie, we are not going to get another shot at this."

"But…" the girl's voice was pleading and maybe a little panicked.

" _Eleanor_!" the girl snapped to attention, her expression shocked. "Ellie, it happens now or it doesn't happen at all. You _know_ how important this is." Marlene gestured to the two smugglers. "As I can't come, I got us some help."

"Wait a minute!" Joel interrupted the tableau, attracting everyone's attention. "Are you saying that you want us to smuggle _her_?" The girl, Ellie, glared at Joel in a way that seemed to say she was no more impressed with him that he was with her.

Marlene couldn't help but smirk at the reactions in the room. "Ellie Williams, meet Joel Miller and Tess St Clair." She turned away from Joel to Tess. "I need Ellie taken out of the Quarantine Zone to a rendezvous; there is a crew of Fireflies from one of our West Coast cells waiting at the State Capitol building."

Tess frowned. "The Capitol… That isn't close and there's a lot of places for Infected to hide from here to there."

"I wouldn't have bothered to ask you if you weren't capable. You hand her off to the cross-country team; they'll give you a proof of receipt to bring back. When I see that, you get all the guns Robert sold me and… no, _double_ what he sold me."

That was generous. If anything it was _too_ generous; Joel didn't like this one bit. Tess clearly had her own misgivings. "Speaking of our payment, so far I've only heard words. Where are they?"

"Back at our main camp."

Tess crossed her arms aggressively. "Well, we're not smuggling _shit_ until I see them with my own eyes."

Marlene glared at Tess who glared back. Finally, Marlene sighed and nodded. "That's reasonable; I'd insist on the same." The woman stood a little straighter. "Let me just change this dressing and we'll go to the camp so you can verify the existence of the payment whilst I get this properly patched up." She looked over at Ellie. "There is no way in hell I'm letting this girl cross into that war-zone. I want Joel to guard her until we get back."

It was actually quite funny the way Joel and Ellie's objections rode over each other as they each stepped towards Marlene with an angry protest.

"Whoa, whoa, now I don't think that's a good idea…"

" _Bullshit_! I'm not going anywhere with him…"

Marlene focussed on Ellie as Tess dragged a rigidly angry Joel over to one side. "Ellie…" Marlene's voice was low, gentle and a little pleading.

"Marlene!" there was so much fear in the girl's voice; the sound of a child who had lost almost every familiar point of reference and didn't want to lose the last one. "H… How do you know them?"

Marlene looked at the smugglers with a secretive smile. "These two? They're the worst hypocrites in Boston. They'll shout loudly all day about being 'businessmen' and not giving a shit about who they sell what and why so long as the fee is good. The real fact though…? The real fact is that you could never meet a more honest pair of criminals in your life. Tess is a woman of her word who actually _believes_ that good things can happen to good people. As for Joel?" Marlene's smile became slightly nostalgic. "I was close with his brother, Tommy, about ten years back. He told me that, push comes to shove, if I was in trouble and I needed help, I could always rely on Joel to watch my back."

Joel felt the old and bitter resentment at Tommy choosing Marlene and her mad, idealistic pipe-dreams over his family all over again. "Yeah... Was that before or after he walked out on your little militia group?"

Marlene scowled at Joel. "I seem to remember that he lost faith in _you_ before he lost faith in us." Joel growled in response but couldn't refute that. "He's a good man, Joel; probably too good for this fuck-up of a world." In that, at least, Joel had to agree with the woman.

Tess put her hand on Joel's shoulder. "Joel, she's right. Take the girl to the entrance of the North Tunnel and wait for me there."

Joel pinched the bridge of his nose. "Jesus _Christ_ , Tess…"

"Look, she's just cargo to keep secure, okay?"

"Marlene!" There was an eloquent plea in that single word from the girl.

"No more talking, Ellie. You'll be fine, I promise. Go; I hope that we'll meet up out West some time." The girl's hand and the terrorist's met briefly and there was a _hell_ of a lot of emotion in that touch.

Joel sighed and turned back to Tess. "Don't take too long." He turned to Ellie and pointed an aggressive finger at her small, pale and innocent face. "You, stay close to me. You're my shadow, got that?" The girl nodded; her face was nearly a parodic mask of sincerity. Joel groaned in anticipation of the trial that lay ahead of him.

* * *

Outside Marlene's hideout (which had once been a diner), Joel and Ellie found themselves in what was once a scenic courtyard in the old Harbour district. Now, like so much of Boston, it was derelict and decaying.

Joel frowned as he looked around at the carnage that had clearly taken place hours ago at the most. There were at least four fresh corpses lying around the courtyard. "Whoa…!" Joel heard his 'cargo' whisper in horror.

Ellie swallowed her nausea at the sight of the corpse that lay less than a body-length away from her, his chest bloodied with six distinct holes in it. Any lasting illusions she might have had about 'the glory of the struggle' that she sometimes heard Marlene preaching about were now pretty effectively dispelled. "I heard the shooting but… What happened here?"

Joel was kneeling by one of the dead militiamen. There was nothing useful on him; the military must have searched the bodies for weapons before moving on. All that he found was a Firefly pendent in the name of Philip Liu, serial no. 000105. He shook his head, noting the man's arm-band with a black 'dragonfly' sigil. "Fireflies…" he muttered to himself. He stood and looked at the girl, who was kneeling beside one of the corpses on the other side of the courtyard, too afraid or repulsed to touch it but too fascinated, despite herself, to look away. "What happened is what will happen to us if we don't get off the streets… and _soon_."

The girl at least managed a semblance of a smile (of a sickly sort) as she stood up. "You're the pro! I'm just following you around like your shadow, right?"

"Right," Joel growled, uncertain if the little brat was co-operating or just mocking him.

As they walked down the stairs from the courtyard to road level, Joel noted that several 'wanted' posters for Fireflies now had black stickers running across them marked 'Executed'. Things were definitely looking bad for the insurgents in Boston.

The smuggler led the girl (who, honestly, was less nervous than Joel expected) through a subway running in front of a condemned apartment building. " _Attention! Harbouring or aiding wanted criminals is punishable by death. Do not place yourself at risk. Report any suspicious activity immediately._ " That pretty much cemented the truth of Marlene's complaints about a new policy of 'guilt by proximity' in Joel's mind. With every breath he took, this little business arrangement seemed more and more a bad idea to him.

"C'mon; keep up," he murmured.

"I am!" Ellie's annoyed whisper came from surprisingly close behind.

Joel waited until a convoy of two HMMWVs and two four-axle trucks roared past before he led the girl on a fast sprint down the low-level walkway and into an alleyway that led out in to a courtyard at the back of several buildings and with the outer wall of the Quarantine Zone crossing its rear.

Ellie looked around the apparent cul-de-sac nervously. "So, where are we going?"

Joel pointed to the upper level of one of the building to the left side of the courtyard. "Up there; that's the entrance to the North Tunnel."

Ellie looked up, noting that the fire escape up the side of the building ended on the second storey. FEDRA had probably removed the final flight to stop anyone from entering what was likely another condemned building. "How do we get up there?"

Joel frowned slightly at the kid's sass. "Just stay and wait for a second." Ellie had a lot to learn about how to hide stuff in plain sight. Joel went to a half-collapsed storage shed and fetched a large dumpster, its Boston Department of Sanitation (BDS) logo barely visible anymore. He dragged it out and ran it into the steel support frame of the fire exit, creating a convenient first step.

Not bothering to indicate to the girl what to do next, Joel leapt up on top of the dumpster and then clambered up onto the first floor landing of the fire escape. Half way up the stairs to the second floor, he decided that he didn't want to have to deal with Tess's moods if the girl had a hissy fit about his attitude; he was about to help the kid up too when he noticed, with a certain surprised approval, that she'd already clambered up onto the dumpster and was hauling herself up onto the landing.

The two ascended to the third storey and paused while Joel pushed open what had been disguised as a locked fire escape door. Once both were inside, Joel pushed the door closed again and toggled on his flashlight; the dirty windows providing barely-sufficient light under the best of circumstances.

The two began to navigate the corridors towards their destination. Joel would have normally been more alert to possible threat but at this level over the ground and within the Zone, the corridors had no hazards, even in a condemned building.

"So…" Ellie decided to make some small talk. "This tunnel; you use it to smuggle things?" Joel gave a positive monosyllable, not really interested in conversation. "Like… illegal things?"

Joel restrained his urge to laugh. "More often than not, yeah; we wouldn't need to _smuggle_ it otherwise, would we?"

The duo jogged up a staircase ever higher in the building; there was a pause before Ellie spoke again. "You ever smuggle a kid before?"

This time, Joel didn't hold in a snort of laughter. "Nope; got to admit that's a first!" The big Texan suddenly felt at ease to ask his own questions. "So, what's the deal between you and Marlene?"

"I don't know… I guess she's my friend."

They were about to cross a bridge over a long-derelict side-road. Joel wasn't going to take any risks; with the military on such high alert, there was always the possibility of snipers out hunting anyone who raised suspicion by being away from more-travelled parts of the Zone. He took the advantage of the pause to look at his current charge. "You 'guess'? You 'guess' that you're the friend of the leader of the Fireflies, the second biggest power left in the country?" He shook his head in disbelief. "You're what… _twelve_?"

"She knew my mom and she's been looking after me." The girl scowled at Joel in a dangerous way and the smuggler had to give her a solid grade 'B' for effort. "And I'm _fourteen_ , not that it has anything to do with anything!"

Having not seen any movement or the characteristic flash of light off of a sniper 'scope, Joel led the girl in a quick sprint across the bridge into an identical building on the other side of the road. The two then ascended another storey to the top of the second building's stairwell. "So, where are your parents?"

"Where are anyone's parents? They've been gone a long, long time!"

That was a big clue in Joel's mind. The girl didn't sound sad, only indifferent and actually slightly annoyed; an orphan from birth then. He grunted noncommittally. "So, instead of staying in school, you decided to get your revenge on the world by joining the Fireflies? Is that it?"

Surprisingly, the girl didn't take the bait. "Look, I'm not supposed to tell you why you're smuggling me, if that's what you're getting at."

Joel turned back to the girl with an annoyed sneer darkening his already-fierce features. "You wanna know what's great about my job? I don't gotta know 'why'. To be honest with you, I couldn't give two _shits_ what you and your momma's old buddy are up to!"

"Well great!" the girl's expression remained defiant.

Joel grimaced before smirking sarcastically. "Good, we understand each other. I'm glad we had this talk."

Joel led Ellie down a corridor of doors along one side, all locked with FEDRA biohazard seal mechanisms, and windows on the other. At the very end of the corridor, the seal had been crudely torn off the last door. It was an indication of just how long abandoned this building was that, a decade later, no-one in authority knew or cared about this.

Joel led Ellie into the long-abandoned apartment and closed the door behind him.

"So, what now?" Ellie asked, looking anxious.

Joel shot the girl an annoyed look. "Now we wait."

"Oh."

Going to the work bench in the adjoining room, Joel spent a few minutes making sure that his gun was lubricated and its spare magazines were fully loaded. Although he wasn't much of a tailor he tried to fix the damage to his flak vest. Then he spent a few minutes wrapping duct tape around his club's head and soldered some thin bits of metal to sides of his good shiv, hopefully adding a few uses to their lifespan. He quickly became aware of Ellie's curious eyes upon him. She was hardly distracting but he knew enough about kids to know what was going to happen next. "What are you doing'?" she asked, surprisingly gently.

"I… am killing time!"

"Well… what am I supposed to do?"

Joel smirked sarcastically. "I am sure that you'll figure that out."

Joel knew that the best way to distract a kid was to feed them. Like all smuggling facilities, the entrance to the North Tunnel had some secured storage from which Joel grabbed a ration bar and a bottle of relatively pure water (filled from a rainwater cistern on the roof), both of which he gave the girl before returning to his work.

After re-donning and re-holstering all his gear, he walked back into the main room where Ellie was peering at the long-dead TV set thoughtfully. She watched him like a hunting hawk as he lay down on the couch. "Still killing time?"

Joel nodded mutely then closed his eyes, determined to get some rest; a very, very difficult job likely awaited him tonight. There was a pause and then a gentle hand ghosted across his left wrist before darting back like a startled butterfly. "Your watch is broken…" Ellie whispered.

 _To be continued…_


	6. Summer - Outside

**The Last of Us**

Based on the story by Neil Drukmann

 **Disclaimer**

 _The Last of Us_ was written for Naughty Dog on behalf of Sony Computer Entertainment by Neil Drukmann and Bruce Straley. It is a trademark property of Sony Computer Entertainment. This is a not-for-profit fan-work for free distribution through the world-wide web. No infringement of trademark or copyright is intended.

 **Author's Notes**

I haven't seen a decent 'straight' novelisation of the game story so far and it was this that led me to start work on this. However, as I continued, I decided that, whilst I will be avoiding OCs, I wasn't content to just turn Neil Drukmann's fine story into a narrative story form. There was one change about which I had lots of ideas. With encouragement of a few other fans of the game, I decided to take this story in this new direction. I hope that I won't be changing any of the key points and themes but I really, really wanted to make this change.

You'll see what I mean in time.

Censor – M – Violence, profanity and description of death and disease

 **Act 1 – Summer**

 **Chapter 5 – Outside**

Joel came awake with a painful jerk, Sarah's name dying on his lips before it was uttered.

"You talk in your sleep," a young voice announced thoughtfully. "I hate bad dreams…"

"Yeah… Yeah, me too." Joel groaned and rubbed his eyes with the back of his hand before he looked over at his 'cargo'.

Ellie was sitting in a chair, looking silently out of the window of the apartment into the night. "You know, I've never been this close; to the Outside, I mean." Rain was clattering against the aged glass but, despite that, the mighty wall surrounding the Quarantine Zone was clear to their sight. To one side were the dim but steady lights of various homes in the Zone. The walls were dotted with powerful halogen floodlights that illuminated the area just in front of and below the walls. Beyond that was a dark void that had once been a vast city of millions of human beings… "Can't be any worse out there… can it?"

Joel surprised himself by not sighing or laughing as he busied himself lighting a small hurricane lantern. _That_ was a level of naiveté, painful and bordering on lethal, that you could only expect from someone who has never been out of the Quarantine Zones and in the Wilds, where the dividing line between man and beast had all-but vanished. "What on Earth do the Fireflies want with _you_?" he murmured, his disbelief finding voice.

Ellie looked over from her consideration of the darkness of Outside to reply.

Whatever she was about to say was lost to time as the door to the apartment swung open, revealing Tess. The woman smirked at Joel, whose Colt was levelled at her. "Hey, sorry it took so long!" Joel gave his partner a glare before tucking his gun away into his waistband. "There are soldiers fuckin' _everywhere_!"

Ellie had jumped up when Tess had entered and now took a few uncertain steps towards her. "How's Marlene?"

Tess nodded at the girl. "She'll make it," she remarked before turning her attention back to Joel and the _really_ important news. "She showed me the merchandise; it's a _lot_. Wanna do this?"

Joel looked at the excitement and, maybe, just a little bit of greedy lust in Tess's eyes. He sighed and nodded. "Yeah."

The trio picked up their stuff and walked into the next room where a wide array of windows looked out across the perimeter wall and out into the Outside. Tess stood by the window, looking out pensively. Although she was eleven years old at the time of the Outbreak, she'd spent most of her adult life in the Boston Quarantine Zone only going outside it on rare occasions for small trips to the drop spots to meet up with their suppliers.

"Don't you think that it's a bit strange that they're asking us to do their smuggling for them?" Joel murmured to her.

"Marlene wanted to do it herself. We weren't the first choice. Hell, we weren't even the _second_ ; that was _Robert_ of all people! She's lost a lot of men and is on the run. You know that beggars can't be choosers!"

Joel grunted noncommittally. "Well, let's just hope that there's someone left to pay us after this is over!"

Tess nodded decisively. "Someone will be around; don't worry about it." She turned to Ellie, who looked both worried and eager. "You ready, kid?" Ellie nodded too, if a bit jerkily with nerves. She watched as Joel and Tess moved a small book-case aside revealing a narrow gap into a previously-hidden utility room.

After sliding sideways into the small room, Joel walked over to start up the generator whose only function was to operate the North Tunnel, several stories down at the bottom of an electric platform elevator. It was another indication of how bad security was in the zone that this sophisticated installation had never even been once _noticed_ by FEDRA. Joel waited until the green power light was shining steady before palming the button to activate the motor. There was a grumble and then, loudly, the platform began to descend on its chain drive the eight stories down to the tunnel level.

Joel decided to hear the rest of Tess's news. "Who's waiting for us at the drop-off?"

"Marlene said it's a group of Fireflies who have come all the way from another city." Tess turned do look at Ellie who kept her eyes straight ahead on the successions of levels passing by as the platform descended. "The girl must be important. What's the deal with you anyway? You some bigwig's daughter that they want in a secure location?"

Ellie's smile was surprisingly cold and closed for a barely-teenage girl. "Something like that." Somehow, Ellie managed not to remark on being dehumanised to being 'the girl'. Instead, she turned to something important to her. "How long is this going to take?"

"If everything goes as planned, we'll reach the Capitol Building in about three hours; around about sunrise." Tess's eyes narrowed. "Ellie?" Hearing her name brought the girl out of her introspection and she looked at the older woman with a little surprise. "Ellie, this is very important. You have no idea, _none_ , of just how dangerous it is outside of the walls of the Zone. When we get out there, there is no sass, no back-talk and no wandering off to 'explore'. Got that? You follow our lead and you obey our instructions to the letter and you do so _immediately_. Am I clear on this?"

Ellie was silent for a moment before she replied in the affirmative in a way that Joel felt indicated she'd been listening to and understanding everything they'd been saying all along despite her introspective expression.

There was a juddering thud as the elevator reached the bottom of the shaft. The tunnel to the exit to the outside was about twenty yards long and was illuminated by red electric lamps strung up along the walls.

Tess checked the patrol route map that was pinned to the wall by the exit. It was supposed to be kept updated but the last few amendments weren't that recent. She blew out an exasperated breath. "Looks like the patrols have been moving towards the tunnel entrance. We'd better keep alert as we leave the tunnel."

* * *

Joel frowned as he watched the soldiers' Maglites moving along the line of the old road just beyond the wall. "Hold up, patrol up ahead!" After a few moments, the lights turned away as the soldiers moved into the shattered stone jungle of partially-demolished buildings beyond the Zone's North Wall. "Alright, we're good."

Joel turned to help Ellie out of the covered entrance to the North Tunnel then he and Tess slid the pressboard cover back on top of it.

The entranceway was hidden away in the ruins of a building, little more than a partially-demolished brick box with shreds of plastic hanging down from the upper level that created a barrier like man-made vines dangling down. Joel looked up the length of the path away from the tunnel. It was basically a row of buildings that had been demolished down to the basement, creating a man-height ditch running in between the wall and a shattered road. In the distance, a tractor-trailer lay where it had skidded off the road into the ditch, also serving as a convenient way of clambering out.

The rain was slamming down still, reducing visibility to a dozen yards and meaning that every step created a racket as you sloshed through standing water.

"Holy shit…" Joel turned to Ellie. The girl was staring around her, her eyes wide open. What Joel saw as basically a huge impediment to his survival was clearly a wonder to her. "I… I'm actually _outside_!"

Joel briefly debated saying something but thought better of it. "This way," he instructed, leading the way down the ditch to the semi-trailer that was the way out.

Joel later decided that he was surprised that their luck ran out so quickly. In retrospect, he supposed that he should have been more wary of ambush, especially in the far-from ideal circumstances in which he found himself. As it was, as he reached the back of the semi-trailer, ready to jump out onto the old, long-abandoned roadway, the first warning he got that he was in trouble was the flash of pain when the butt of an assault rifle caught him in the back of the head.

"Don't try anything stupid," a second soldier growled, his Enforcer levelled at the back of Tess's head.

Joel was in a bad mood and his head hurt. Nonetheless, he wasn't about to do anything stupid with an equally pissed off soldier pointing her assault rifle at the three of them as they knelt in the mud at the back of the trailer. "This is Ramirez in Sector 12," she growled into her radio. "Requesting pick-up for three stragglers." There was a pause as Ramirez listened to the reply. "Understood." She looked up at her partner. "Scan 'em. Pick up's on the way."

Joel's mind was racing to try and figure out a way out of this. It was clear that the same was the case with Tess. He was impressed that, although Ellie looked terrified, the girl wasn't obviously crying or hysterical or anything. Something about life in the Zone toughened kids up in ways that would have been unimaginable beforehand.

"Look the other way," Tess advised the soldier scanning her in a calm, level tone. "We can make this worth your while."

"Shut up, bitch." He looked over at Ramirez. "What's the ETA?"

"Five minutes." The soldier scanned Tess and Joel, finding both to be clean. Then he scanned Ellie, who was muttering to herself in a way that indicated that something had suddenly scared her in a big way.

Naturally, both soldiers' attention was focussed on the two adults. They hadn't really been paying much attention to the small teenager, probably thinking that a child wasn't a serious threat. That was dumb; anyone and anything could be a threat, especially if you didn't treat them with appropriate care. Both soldiers had been so focussed on Tess and Joel that neither had noticed that Ellie had palmed her switchblade when the soldier had come up behind her and Tess. It was now child's play for her to flip out the blade and drive it into the soldier's calf as he stood right behind her, scanning her for CBI.

The blow was hardly lethal but the sharp blade punching through his calf muscle and scraping across his femur created an agonising blaze of pain. Tess rolled forward out of the way as Ellie yanked out her knife and also dived forwards to get away from the soldier, who had pulled his Enforcer half out of its holster. Joel rose to his feet and, with a single smooth move, tackled the man down, trying to yank the gun out of the man's hand.

Ramirez cemented her 'rookie' credentials in Tess's eyes by focussing on the struggle, raising her rifle and trying to get a clear shot at Joel and ignoring Tess and Ellie. She never noticed Tess coming up into a kneeling position, pulling her Walther out of her waistband and aiming carefully. Then Tess put two 9mm slugs through her temple and it didn't matter anymore.

Joel calmly forced the other soldier's gun (still in the man's grip) to his forehead and pushed down on his trigger finger, blowing a 45-calibre hole through the man's head with his own weapon.

Ellie couldn't help but gape at the blood and gore. She was hardly innocent but this was a lot more intense than anything else she'd experienced before. "Shit! I thought we'd just tie 'em up or something!"

Tess, acting on an instinct that she would never be able to adequately explain, picked up the CBI scanner; maybe it was the blinking red lights. Either way, she saw something that changed her life forever. "Oh shit! Joel look at this!"

Joel stared at the simple message on the screen: _Infected_. He looked up at Ellie and felt ice water in his veins. "Jesus Christ! Marlene _set us_ up? Why the hell does she have us smuggling an _infected_ girl?" As much as a part of him wanted to feel a grim satisfaction at the realisation that he'd always been right about Marlene, he still found it hard to credit that anyone could be that _cold_! Joel pulled out his Colt, ready to do the girl the last favour that he could do for her.

Ellie saw her death in Joel's dark eyes and instinctively raised her hands in a warding off gesture. "No! I'm not infected!"

Joel always swore that he would treat someone in this situation in the right way. So, instead of just blowing the girl's brains out, he threw the scanner over to her. "So, this thing is lying?"

Ellie scowled at the display and Joel noticed that she didn't look _that_ surprised. "It's complicated but I can explain!" Not exactly the world's most surprising response, all things considered.

"Better make it fast, kiddo!" Tess snapped lining up her Walther.

On the edge of panic, Ellie yanked up the right sleeve of her long-sleeved tee-shirt, revealing an ugly set of scars. It was clearly a human bite mark. "Look at this!"

Joel gesture dismissively and turned away in disgust. "I'm not interested in how you got infected!"

"This is _three weeks old_!"

Both smugglers shot each other sceptical looks. "No, the longest anyone goes after being Infected before they Turn is two days, so you'd better stop bullshitting us!"

"No, just _look at_ it!" The skin was still red and inflamed but the injuries themselves were healing over; the scabs had time to start falling off. "Does this look a day or so old? I swear it's been three weeks since I was bitten!"

Joel frowned. "I'm not buying it…" he said, but his anger was fading; he had to admit to himself that the injury looked old and that the whole scenario seemed off.

"Even if I was lying, which I'm not, why would Marlene go to all this trouble just to set you two up? I mean, the timing would need to be perfect and no-one knows what determines how soon someone Turns after they've been Infected! It would be nearly impossible to pull off!"

Tess and Joel looked at each other again. The whole situation was almost too weird for words. Neither of them was sure what to do next or even really what to _think_ about the situation. Suddenly, the time to think was over. Two HMMVRs were rolling from the nearest gate towards them, searchlights probing towards them. "Shit! Tess! Run, now!"

Tess took one step away before looking back at the terrified Ellie. "Girl, I don't know what the fuck is happening but if you want to keep living, you'll run! MOVE NOW!"

Ellie staggered to her feet and Tess grabbed hold of a fist-full of her shirt. She pulled the girl down a muddy embankment back into the ditch running along the front of the walls of the Zone. They joined Joel huddled behind the rusted skeleton of a car. Behind them, they could hear the soldiers' furious reactions to finding their colleagues' dead bodies. Within seconds, alarms began to blare and searchlights began to track backwards and forwards. Doubtless, there were plenty of snipers up on the wall trying to find something to kill.

Joel looked at his partner, anger and fear on both their faces. "They're gonna be out in numbers now, tryin' to find who killed their boys!"

Tess looked around desperately. To the left, up a slight rise, she could see a set of collapsed trenches turning what had once been a set of roads and the basements of obliterated buildings into a labyrinth of concrete and shattered sewer pipes. She nudged Joel; he saw what she saw and nodded. She turned to Ellie. "Alright, when I give the signal, we run, got that?" Ellie nodded. Tess waited until the regular movements of the spotlights passed over their hiding place. "RUN!"

* * *

Somehow, Joel didn't know how, they evaded the seemingly innumerable soldiers standing on top of the trenches, aiming the Maglites on their assault rifles downwards and looking for any sign of the 'stragglers' responsible for killing two of their own. Based on the unerring principle of 'get the hell away from here', Joel led his partner and their 'cargo' (whatever the hell her story was – it had better be a good one or Marlene would be hearing from him soon) through the trenches and through the remains of a sub-surface garage complex.

The next stage of their flight was hairy to say the least. The soldiers were systematically spreading outwards through the ruins of the buildings immediately around the walls of the Zone. Maglite beams swung back and forth and snatches of conversation that Joel heard suggested that they'd been labelled 'Fireflies' and that this only made the soldiers more determined to kill them.

After somehow sneaking past a group in the hollowed-out ruin of a house, the three fugitives found themselves skulking down a ruined road. They crouched behind a long-disabled and abandoned Bradley AFV. Joel looked down the street and didn't like what he saw. There had to be a full platoon methodically sweeping down the street whilst more were on the rooftops of the still-standing brownstone buildings, covering their colleagues with rifles, Maglite beams tracking back and forth. "There's too many, Tess!"

Tess reached over and squeezed her partner's shoulder. "They haven't seen us yet; let's go around."

The buildings to the right were hollowed out by long ago explosions and fires but their walls were still standing and promised shelter from the soldiers' lights. After waving Tess and Ellie past, Joel pulled a brick he'd grabbed earlier out of his pack and hurled it back the way they had come. The projectile struck the Bradley's turret, the loud metallic noise attracting the attention of all the soldiers.

Joel ghosted into the interior of the building as urgent footfalls told him the soldiers were rushing down the road to investigate the noise. He was just telling himself that his ad-hoc plan had worked when he heard Ellie, crouched behind an old dresser, hiss out a terrified warning. "Oh shit! They're in here with us!"

Joel scowled as a single soldier, armed with an Equaliser with an under-barrel Maglite began to sweep the interior of the ruined house. There was no time to sit tight. Joel's distraction would only last so long and then they'd be up to their armpits in soldiers who had less and less incentive to show a hint of mercy.

He waited until the torch beam swung away from their hiding place and then he threw the brick he had snatched off of the floor right at the soldier's head. It was too much to ask for that the blow would be enough. The guy had a riot helmet on but the sudden impact certainly stunned him. Joel lunged forward and followed up with his wooden bludgeon, striking at the soldier's face with a powerful overhand baseball swing. The simple force of Joel's attack was enough to shatter the soldier's Lexan faceplate and smack his head against the wall behind him. Joel drove his fist into the man's throat. There was body armour in the way but only a relatively thin layer and Joel felt it give under the blow. Choking, the soldier slumped forward and Joel drove a powerful overhead swing of his bludgeon down onto the exposed back of his neck. The bludgeon snapped in two but it wasn't the only thing. The sound the soldier made as he hit the ground was hollow and the gasp of his breath leaving his lungs was very, very final.

Tess was doing the right thing and watching their backs. "More lights; they're coming back Joel!"

Joel stopped his search for the fallen soldier's gun and gestured frantically for his companions to run. He gestured towards a half-collapsed side window leading back out onto the streets. "Up there; go!"

" _The lieutenant's down!_ "

" _Fuck! Sweep the area! Find those Firefly fuckers!_ "

"Go, go! Run, run!" Joel hissed urgently pushing Ellie to urge her to more speed. Suddenly, he heard assault rifles beginning to fire. Bullets kicked up the blacktop all around them. Tess and Ellie jumped into a huge bomb crater that split the road apart. A rifle shot clipped Joel's right side, just under his armpit making him glad that he'd bought that armour yesterday afternoon. He took a running jump and…

 _Two hammer-blows slammed into his back._

Somehow, Joel managed to stagger to his feet despite what might be a lethal injury. _Well, I'm not dead yet; better keep movin'_. "T… Tess? Where next?"

"It's hard to know; everything's so different but…" The Bostonian woman paused and then nodded decisively and pointed to a set of stairs leading down and deeper into the basement. "This takes us in the right general direction."

The three of them soon found themselves wading through hip-deep water (waist deep for Ellie) through storm drains. One section of the drains had a massive overhead grille. Several torch beams were being shone down into the drain from the road level above. Joel grabbed Ellie and, in response to an instinct that he didn't care to think too deeply about, held the girl tightly to his chest, a hand over her mouth to block off any talk, scream or other audible idiocy.

" _Charlie Squad, report_!"

" _No contact with target sir!_ "

" _Echo Squad reported a contact about a block back East. You've not seen anything?_ "

" _No sir! Nothing either surface or subsurface!_ "

There was a pause as the guy in charge considered this report. " _Okay, this has gone on long enough; we're leaving those Firefly fuckers to the Clickers! Break off pursuit and rendezvous with other squads in sector eleven._ "

" _Copy that! Alright, you heard the man! Mount up!_ "

Joel waited until the sounds of HMMVR engines faded away before releasing a scowling Ellie and gesturing for his companions to proceed onwards.

* * *

"Is he going to be okay?"

Tess was more than a little impressed that Ellie was holding the torch so steadily to provide light as Tess bound the fortunately mostly-cosmetic puncture wounds in Joel's back. "Yeah, that shit took most of the damage." She gestured at Joel's ruined slum armour. The back plate, made of pressboard and an old steel dinner tray of all things, had been devastated by the impact of two 22-calibre assault rifle bullets but had absorbed just enough of the impact energy that the bullets had been unable to penetrate too deeply into Joel's muscular back.

Ellie nodded. She switched topic to what she saw as the next biggest priority. "Are we safe now?"

Tess caught Joel's sardonic quirk of an eyebrow but decided to treat the question seriously. "No; they're still around and won't give up easily given that they've lost some of their own today. Just take this as a chance to catch your breath." She took her torch back from Ellie and re-attached it to her backpack's shoulder strap. She threw Joel's battered but still-serviceable plaid flannel shirt over to him. "You'll live, Joel. Now, look around and see if there is anything we can use."

"Sure thing, Boss!"

It quickly became clear that the basement room, apparently once a maintenance and engineering room for the city's sewer system, been abandoned for so long that there was nothing of use to them. It had either long since been looted or had degraded into uselessness. Joel found some interesting mechanical parts that he figured he could use for things and also a pack of three pairs of kitchen scissors, still in their wrapping, in a locker.

Joel turned a corner and found a junction of sewer pipes. One definitely seemed to be going upwards. "Tess, I'm thinking that this here pipe is the way out." He flung the ruined armour and the equally-ruined knuckledusters into one of the lockers (no need to make it easy for searchers to find their trail). Then he led his two companions on again.

They paused for a while in another storm drain with a massive grilled roof as HMMVRs and trucks roared past overhead. However, no-one seemed to be looking for them anymore. It looked like, for now, the pursuit had been abandoned.

A few minutes later, the trio emerged through an outfall grille into a ditch running alongside what had once been a highway leading through the centre of the city. Just to make Joel's day perfect, the rain was still pouring out of the sky as if someone had left a faucet open.

Tess looked at Ellie who was sitting in a defensive crouch, some distance away. She drew in a deep breath and then walked over to the girl. "Ellie? Tell me what the plan was?" Ellie looked confused. "Look, let's say that this works by some miracle. We get you to Marlene's pick-up squad in the State Capitol Building. What then?"

Ellie seemed to have to travel deep inside herself for a moment before she could reply. "Marlene… She told me that the Fireflies have their own quarantine zone somewhere. There are doctors there who are… who are still trying to cure the Cordyceps."

Joel snorted indelicately. "Yeah, we've heard that before, right Tess?"

Much to Joel's surprise, Tess did not respond to his mockery in kind. Instead, the brunette woman focussed her attention on Ellie, wordlessly encouraging her to continue. "She said that… that whatever this is that has happened to me… may be the secret of creating a vaccine; something that will stop people from getting infected ever again!"

Joel shook his head and couldn't hold his scornful contempt in. "Oh, Jesus! That shit again!"

"Look it's what she _said_!" Ellie snapped.

"Oh, yeah, I'm sure she _said_ that, kid!"

Ellie was on her feet and glaring at Joel. "Look _fuck you_ , old man! I didn't ask for _any_ of this shit!"

"No, me neither!" Joel replied in a dismissive tone. He turned to his partner. "Tess, what the fuck are we doing here again?"

Tess was picking at her lip thoughtfully. "Joel… What if this is true?"

Joel couldn't believe his ears. His normally oh-so-level-headed and pragmatic partner was the one saying this? " _Bullshit_! I can't believe that…"

"Just _what if_ , Joel?" Tess turned to her partner with a pleading expression on her face that suddenly made her seem so much younger and so much more in need of a reason to carry on than she had ever looked before. She sighed. "We've come this far; what more risk are we taking by finishing it?"

Joel was suddenly in Tess's face, glaring at her as he pulled her close. For the first time in a very, very long time, Tess was more than a little afraid of him. "Look, Tess, do I have to remind you of _what is out there_?" he asked as he savagely gestured at the ruins of Boston and the wild lands beyond.

Tess's voice turned harsh, communicating that she'd made her decision and that he wasn't about to change it for her. "I get it Joel." She turned towards the ruined freeway and gestured to where it passed under a shattered overpass. "If we go this way and cut through downtown, we'll reach the State Capitol by sunrise tomorrow."

Joel shook his head " _We hope_ ," he murmured to himself as Tess turned to Ellie and extended her hand, her expression surprisingly gentle. Uncertainly, the girl took her hand and let herself be led away.

Joel briefly considered leaving Tess and her cargo to their fool's errand but that was self-deceit and he knew it. If not for the forlorn hope that had stolen Tess's good sense, he would do this _for Tess_.

 _To be continued…_


	7. Summer - Downtown Boston Part 1

**The Last of Us**

Based on the story by Neil Drukmann

 **Disclaimer**

 _The Last of Us_ was written for Naughty Dog on behalf of Sony Computer Entertainment by Neil Drukmann and Bruce Straley. It is a trademark property of Sony Computer Entertainment. This is a not-for-profit fan-work for free distribution through the world-wide web. No infringement of trademark or copyright is intended.

 **Author's Notes**

I haven't seen a decent 'straight' novelisation of the game story so far and it was this that led me to start work on this. However, as I continued, I decided that, whilst I will be avoiding OCs, I wasn't content to just turn Neil Drukmann's fine story into a narrative story form. There was one change about which I had lots of ideas. With encouragement of a few other fans of the game, I decided to take this story in this new direction. I hope that I won't be changing any of the key points and themes but I really, really wanted to make this change.

You'll see what I mean in time.

Censor – M – Violence, profanity and description of death and disease

 **Act 1 – Summer**

 **Chapter 6 – Downtown Boston, Part 1 (Goldstone Building)**

Joel was just jogging back to join his companions after looting a surprisingly large amount of vitamins and medication as well as (amazingly) a half-dozen 9mm bullets from a wrecked UPS delivery truck. Tess and Ellie were standing in the middle of a ruined plaza and looking up at two skyscrapers. One was tilted against the other at a crazy angle, obviously only held in a semblance of upright by the structural strength of the other building.

Ellie was clearly awestruck. "I've never seen the ruined city this close before! The buildings are… so _big_! What the fuck happened out here anyway?"

Illuminated by a distant flash of lighting, something caught Joel's eye, lying on the ground by a long-dead telephone booth. He walked over and scooped it up before returning to show it to Ellie.

The girl looked at the laminated notice, still legible after twenty years lying on the ground. "'Carpet bombing'? That doesn't sound so good."

Tess explained. "It was basically the last thing the air force did before they ran out of parts, men and reasons to keep their combat aircraft operating. They bombed the hell out of the areas immediately around the Quarantine Zones hoping to kill as many of the infected in their host cities as they could. It actually worked… for a while at least."

Ellie and Tess were both quiet but for different reasons. Joel hadn't been anywhere near any of the Quarantine Zones at that time but Tess had told him what it was like to hear her home town practically blown to bits around her as she and her surviving family cowered in their designated tenement in the Zone. Like she said, it actually _worked_ for a while, so who was he to judge that plan?

The three moved onward and began to ascend an unexpected hill just in between two of the skyscrapers when a bone-chilling shriek cut through the air, seemingly in response to a crash of distant thunder.

Ellie span, her wide, green eyes searching the darkened ruins for some source of the sound. "Shit! What the hell was that?"

Joel frowned grimly. "Tess, did you hear that? What do you think?"

Tess thought for a moment. "That was a long way off; you know that they're not inclined to move too far to hunt."

Ellie didn't really understand, of course. "Are we safe?"

Tess blew out her breath before responding. "For now; come on."

Ellie, being Ellie, tried to dispel the tension with small talk. "So, this is Downtown Boston, huh?"

Tess swallowed a nostalgic sickness. "Once, yeah; now it's just another part of the wastelands."

"Over here!" Joel called from just at the top of the rise. Once there, they found out why they were clambering up an incline fairly quickly. In front of them, the ground disappeared. The bomb crater was huge, maybe 500 yards across and extending downwards some way.

Tess boldly walked out on a bit of pavement that extended over the chasm. She shone her torch light down into the darkness and saw a sparkle of metal below; maybe one of the city's subway stations.

Ellie tossed a pebble into the chasm. There was a metallic impact about ten seconds later. _Deep enough for anyone_ , Joel thought. He sighed. "We'll just have to find a way around it!" He turned a circle and noted a gap of light shining through a nearby ruined building. He crawled into the shattered building and found his way out onto a grassy terrace at the bottom of one of the ruined skyscrapers, the Goldstone Building, according to a sign for a long-devastated terrace café.

"Found anything?" Tess called.

"Not right now but this terrace looks good; get over here!"

"Um… should I be doing anything?" Ellie's voice was plaintive.

Joel looked over as the girl emerged from the ruins of what had once been a shop and clambered out onto the terrace. "Just stick close to Tess for now."

"Roger dodger!" Joel actually spent five seconds trying to work out what the hell that meant as he walked up and down the terrace, thinking about their next move.

Trying to get through the skyscraper wasn't his first choice. The bomb had blown out the building's foundations and it was leaning over the crater at an unhealthy angle. It didn't look likely to collapse any time soon but he was no structural engineer. In all likelihood, just the weight of three moving humans might be enough to overbalance it!

He briefly glanced at the ID necklace of Joseph Lenz, Firefly #000113, which he had found hanging from a tree at the far end of the terrace and came to his decision. There was no other way through the chaotic terrain created by the bomb blast except through the building. He just hoped that the worst forms of local 'wildlife' hadn't returned after the bombing.

He gestured to an opening in the side of the building; a whole wall of what had once been a corporate meeting room was gone, turning it into a strange kind of lobby. "Tess, this looks like the only way."

* * *

The interior of the building was a mess; the bomb blast followed by the building's slow subsidence into the crater had sent machinery and furniture rolling across the floor and had blocked some doors. Some areas were impassable due to collapsed ceilings or floors. Fortunately, for Joel and his companions, the main stairwell near their entrance was unblocked and they could check every level for a way through.

It was 'fortunately' until they found the first dead soldier. The man was surrounded by a few empty magazines for his semi-automatic pistol and was… Well, he'd been someone's lunch. "Ripped apart," Tess concluded.

Joel touched the body. Cold but rigor hadn't worn off. That meant… what… it was about a day old? "This body's still fresh."

"Is that bad?" Joel looked over at a deathly-pale Ellie and was impressed that the girl had held down the chunk of meal bar that she'd been eating just a minute or so previously. "I mean… could whatever killed that guy still be around?"

"It could be," Tess murmured. "In any case, let's not stick around to find out."

Further up the stairwell, they found another corpse. This one had a clipboard lying next to it. Joel read it quickly. "Looks like FEDRA were sweeping the building for something. From these notes, I'd say the entire patrol was wiped out." Joel shook his head. "They died waiting for backup." To Joel, that was just another sign of just how bad things were getting for FEDRA in Boston.

Finally, they got as far up as they could get. Above level 6, the stairwell had pancaked in on itself and was impassable.

Joel forced open the door into level 6 and froze as he stepped forwards. On the other side of the darkened corridor was a thing from a nightmare: A skeletal, partially-mummified corpse that was practically glued to a door by a wild sporocarps growth. The thing's head was what drew your attention. Above the jaw… _it didn't have one_. All there was in its place was a grotesque, crown-like mass of fungal growths extending out of the hidden and doubtless partially-consumed cerebral cortex. Joel swallowed. "Goddamn it! Clicker!"

He stepped forward, his gun drawn and scanned up and down the corridor. There was no obvious sign of movement. If their luck held, this guy was just someone who settled down to make spores a long, long time ago. The lack of spores in the air _did_ suggest that this was a very old corpse.

Ellie had gotten very close to the Clicker and was looking at its head in puzzlement. "I don't see any eyes!"

Tess sighed and switched over to 'lecture' mode; the kid needed to know what she needed to survive, after all. "That's what years of infection does to someone. The fungus grows on the brain until the pressure splits open the skull; the top of the head bursts off eventually, destroying the eyes."

"So… they're blind?"

"Yeah, but that's not such a big disadvantage for them. These guys 'see' with sound. Not only can they hear a lot better than uninfected humans but they can also generate pulses of sound that lets them 'see' objects and people just from the echoes."

"Like bats?"

"Yep; when you hear the clicks, find somewhere to hide and stay as still as you can."

Suddenly there was a horrible metallic groaning that filled the air. The floor shifted and there was the sound of stuff crashing against walls elsewhere. Joel looked around frantically. "This fucking ruin is waiting to collapse. We need to keep movin'." The corridors to either side of the stairwell exit had collapsed several levels; the only way out of the corridor was through the door 'guarded' by the dead Clicker. The big Texan grimaced in disgust before grabbing the paper-light desiccated corpse and yanking it away from its previous final resting place.

Without its grizzly guardian, the door opened smoothly. The three spread out in the open-plan office space, looking for any useful salvage. Ellie got the jackpot, finding a full standard first-aid kit in a cabinet over a sink to one side. Joel also found cleaning materials that he figured he could turn into a Molotov cocktail or a medical kit when he had a few minutes to rub together.

As they were checking the desks and finding a surprisingly large number of FEDRA ration bars, the building groaned again. This time, office chairs and even various cabinets and desks began to roll across the space, several smashing against the far wall. Joel couldn't blame Ellie for her little cry of panic or the way she was suddenly clinging to his side. He had to admit that the thought of dying alone in a building falling sideways into a goddamn abyss wasn't high up on his list of nice exits either.

He gently detached Ellie and they went over to the last door that remained unchecked. Naturally, given their luck, it was jammed. He gestured to Tess and, with their combined strength, they were able to force it open.

Joel scanned one way in the new corridor, noting that the floor had collapsed practically all the way down to the basement.

"JOEL!" In response to Tess's scream, Joel turned the other way just in time to see the Clicker lunging for him, its drooling, lipless mouth with the grotesque split upper mandible dividing its upper jaw practically into two heading right for the soft flesh of his throat. Somehow, Joel managed to get his forearm into the thing's throat and stop it from reaching biting range. Even so, the transmitted force of the Infected nightmare's charge knocked him flat. Joel didn't have the time or resources to think or come up with a plan. It was taking all of his strength to hold back the hissing, screeching thing as it tried to get close enough to tear him apart with its teeth. Four agonising shallow cuts were opened in his chest as the thing tried to claw him.

Suddenly, Tess was there, she'd pulled out a wooden bludgeon and swung it underhand into the Clicker's jaw and then into the centre of its face, sending it tumbling away. The creature's unnatural durability meant that it was stunned for only a few seconds but it had been enough. Tess pushed her boot into the screeching creature's chest and pushed it flat on the ground. Her Walther came out and she put two bullets into the mass of fungus protecting the remains of its brain and the fungal core. The creature shuddered and fell still.

Ellie was already next to Joel helping him to his feet. "Are… are you okay?"

Joel looked at the shallow cuts and dismissed them. CBI could only be transmitted by body fluid transfer or inhalation of spores. "This is nothin'." He turned to Tess and gave her a tight smile. "Thanks for the save."

Tess smiled back in that way that made Joel wonder things. "Let's check this level for supplies. I've got a feeling that there are going to be more unpleasant surprises further on."

"That was intense!" Ellie muttered to herself, wiping her forehead as they went through the door on the other side of the corridor.

Tess couldn't help smirk. "You said it!" She turned to Joel and tossed him a Medikit. "As I'm sure you'd not think to do it yourself unless someone mentions it, use this to patch yourself up!"

Joel looked around the canteen area into which they'd entered. Whilst the two ladies busied themselves checking the place for anything useful that may have been left behind, Joel got busy with other work. Using the convenient and near-intact counters as a work surface, he quickly threw together some extra tools with the various items he'd scavenged. A pair of medium-grade shivs, and a medikit took shape. "Do you think you need all that stuff?"

Joel blinked in surprise at how easily Ellie had sneaked up on him. This girl was _quiet_ when she wanted to be. He recovered instantly, not wanting the girl the satisfaction of knowing that she'd surprised him. "You should never be out in the Wild without tools. Medikits, especially might be all that stands between you and bleeding out from a bullet wound. Shivs are used for more than killing; they're a tool for foraging too, if you know what to do with 'em." Ellie nodded thoughtfully and then turned away again.

Joel then turned to the scratches on his chest. A part of him wished he'd kept the slum armour but it had been so beaten up by the time he'd dumped it that the various bits of reinforcement were coming loose and it was more of a hindrance than a help. He walked out of the room into a next-door store-room. Two rows of metal-frame shelves had toppled over because of the precarious tilt of the building. There was a can of painkillers but nothing much else.

The next door over in the sequence was locked. He broke the last of his scavenged slum-blades using it to jimmy open the lock. Inside was something of a treasure trove: Several shelves had piles of office materials stacked up from which Joel was able to get lots of useful supplies, including a bottle of medical disinfectant and a bottle of multi-vitamins! There was even a box of 9mm ammunition (and God alone knew what that was doing in an office building's store-room), although there were only five rounds remaining in it.

"Okay, I think that's everything!" Tess called from back in the canteen room. Joel walked back. Tess slung over two bottles of clean water that had been sitting in the long-dead refrigerator. Joel nodded in thanks and slid it into his pack.

* * *

The three travellers crossed over the corridor and walked out into what was once the lobby of some kind. To the left, the wall and floor dropped away into the depths of the building. To the right was a wall leading up to a mezzanine level. The decorative wood-and-glass stairs up to that level lay dead ahead, collapsed flat.

"Yeesh!" Ellie swallowed her disgust and tried to ignore the very gnawed-on and dead soldier hanging in a tangle of yellow safety tape from the upper level.

Joel looked at the bloody mess of the man's throat and growled unhappily. He knew a Clicker's handiwork when he saw it. The building was pretty obviously infested. "Let's see if there's a way through up there."

Joel quickly got Tess and Ellie up onto the upper level and then Tess helped him ascend too. As he came up to his full height, noting that this place looked like some kind of trendy eatery, he saw Ellie freeze and look to the right in reaction to something she'd seen or heard. " _Shit_ …! Clickers?" the girl whispered in horror.

Joel heard the clicking noise too; he practically threw his two companions behind a rack of what looked like old wine bottles near the windows of the open-plan wine bar they had entered.

All three crouched down and listened to the inhuman crackles, whines and hisses the Clicker made as it searched around, trying to find the source of the noise it had heard just moments before. Ellie had closed her eyes, gritted her teeth and was clearly holding in cries of terror by main force alone. Finally, the Clicker tired of its search and waddled away towards a door a few yards away leading to a corridor that ran along the far end of the office out onto the mezzanine.

Tess risked a look over the lip of the top of the rack and pointed. Joel nodded; there was a scaffold leading up out of this retail space to an upper floor's main corridor. Of course, they had to get past this Infected _thing_ first.

Tess frowned and slowly slid one of the bottles out of the rack. Twenty years ago, it was probably worth hundreds of dollars. Now, it was just a tool. The woman rose up and tossed it across the office space to smash against the far wall of the mezzanine. The Clicker screeched and rushed towards the sound. Just when Joel was about to think it had worked… _a second came out from an office on the other side of the internal corridor_! Joel watched with growing frustration as the second Infected wandered out to a point right in front of the scaffold leading up and out and stood there, twitching spastically and making little screeching noises to itself.

Tess squeezed Ellie's shoulder and pointed to the left. The girl was white with fear but nodded and followed the woman as they crab-walked sideways along the arc of high dining tables towards the exit.

The second Clicker had wandered away a bit. Joel still didn't like the probable outcome of trying to climb the scaffold with those things nearby. He reached out and took a bottle from the table in front of him and threw it as hard as he could towards the lower-level lobby. There was a distant but startlingly loud shattering noise as the bottle it the floor of the lobby level. With a terrible screech, one of the Clickers raced onto the mezzanine walkway and stood there, clicking madly as it tried to detect what had made the noise. The other moved a few paces down the corridor but didn't go too far.

Joel grimaced. It was too much to hope for that the two things would have just jumped down into the lobby. He gestured savagely for Tess and Ellie to climb the scaffold before vaulting the tables and crab-walking slowly up behind the nearest Clicker. He could smell the musty rot in the rags that had once been the uniform of a waiter in a trendy wine bar as he lunged upright and drove one of his newly-crafted shivs into the creature's neck, carving open artery and vein. He then dove into a side office, likely the manager's, as the other Clicker spun around in response to the other's screech of death. Joel could hear the creature padding closer, the clicks of its echo-location filling the air. Joel flattened himself against the wall and willed his breathing to be shallow and silent as the creature scanned the office. Then he heard a faint 'clang' from outside. The Clicker turned towards the bar with a loud, dangerous hiss. As it braced itself to charge towards Ellie and Tess's location, Joel jumped out behind it and snapped the shiv off in the nape of its neck. The already-lifeless Clicker slumped to the floor.

Joel shot Ellie a scowl as she offered him a hand up to the top of the scaffold. A part of him admitted that it was pointless; this was hardly her fault, after all. However, his and Tess's 'cargo' had already been the vector of more trouble than they'd bargained for and a petty part of him wanted to blame _someone_.

Tess offered the girl a worried look. "You okay, Ellie?"

Ellie shot the woman a wan smile. "Other than shitting my pants… I'm fine."

* * *

The stairwell they found on the other side of the internal corridor was just trouble from the start. Up and down, it was regularly blocked and, although Joel was able to get them past a rolling architects' drawing cabinet that had somehow got jammed into one of the risers, even he wasn't going to get them past a collapsed ceiling.

"Do we go back up?" Ellie asked as Joel examined another eviscerated soldier.

"No, we go around the outside." Joel and Ellie both looked up to see Tess standing on a window cleaning/maintenance platform hanging outside the shattered windows.

"What? Are you _serious_?" Ellie blurted out. Joel didn't say it but the sign on the wall said 'Level 5', so he saw the girl's point. It was putting a _lot_ of faith in a collection of metal planks, pipes, cables and connectors that had been hanging out in the elements without maintenance for _twenty years_ and was hanging fifty feet up in the air.

"Aaahhh… this is crazy," Tess's voice had gone up an octave as she navigated the jiggling platform, its metal surface slick from the driving rain and the wind trying to throw her over the side. The woman turned and looked at Joel and Ellie, who were still in the stairwell landing, looking out of the shattered plate glass window after her with horrified expressions. "'S'okay," she lied through her teeth. "Just remember not to look down!"

Ellie nervously clambered the platform's safety rail and gently lowered herself down onto the platform's floor. "Okay… Don't look down… Don't look down…" She began to edge along the platform.

Joel sucked in his breath and vaulted onto the platform.

He probably let himself drop to the floor a bit too heavily because the platform rocked crazily from side to side, its support cables twanging and whining with the sudden stress. Ellie shot Joel a look of utter terrified accusation that the big man wasn't about to forget any time soon (although, if his clumsy move had killed them both, who could blame her?).

Tess gently eased Ellie up onto some kind of platform that was part of the corner of building. The two ladies edged around the corner, Ellie continuing to mutter her mantra: "Don't look down… Don't look down…"

Tess looked through the windows of another stairwell around the corner and touched Ellie's shoulder reassuringly. "You're okay; we've got our way through."

Joel never thought he'd appreciate so much the interior of a Clicker-infested ruin that was waiting to fall over into a bomb crater.

* * *

The way further down was blocked; _really_ blocked. Joel, Tess and Ellie looked down from a second level set of windows, mostly broken now, at an open space, its side and roof blown away during the carpet bombing, with about a half-dozen Runners wandering about, raving to themselves. "Well, at least we know what happened to the rest of those soldiers," Tess remarked wryly.

Joel finished inspecting the loaded 357-Magnum revolver he had just obtained from another eviscerated solder. He looked down through the windows and scowled at the barrier of Infected killers. Any temptation on his part to try to shoot his way through them was ruled out off by the fact that, as Tess had indicated, half of them were former soldiers and were wearing body armour. There was no point whining about it, though. If they wanted out, they had to get past them. "I'll check it out; you stay up here with the girl."

Joel padded back the way he had come. To the left was a small office space whose floor had collapsed into a corridor running just behind the area infested with Runners. Joel dropped down as lightly as he could, very aware of the sensitivity of Infected denizens to sound. Joel noted a dead drinking fountain and, at its base a disconnected metal water pipe. He scooped up the treasure, twice as good as a club as any bit of wood could be.

Joel walked into the interior corridor. There were too doors leading deeper into the building; an office space of some kind. On the other side were the gaping frames of long-vanished plate-glass windows looking into the devastated office space beyond. Joel frowned. Apart for the five or six Runners, there was also a single Clicker, its head bowed, resting against a column.

Finding a cabinet to hide behind, Joel crouched down. What he needed now was patience. The strange thing about the Infected was that they tended to stay in more-or-less the same area where they Turned. They'd wander short and repetitive 'patrol routes' (often paths that held some significance to the human that they once had been) but didn't wander far from that unless they found something to attack. All Joel had to do is crouch behind the small end table and plot the routes they were taking. So long as he didn't make a noise or move in front of one of them, he was effectively invisible.

Quietly, he followed one of the Runners into the large office space on the opposite side of the corridor from the main open space. The creature seemed utterly oblivious of Joel's presence as he came up behind it, even though he had his torch on and he had no difficulty strangling the pseudo-life out of it.

Joel returned to his hiding spot and considered the disposition of the Runners and Clicker. It would be helpful if they were all in the same place and looking in the same direction. He pulled an empty bottle out of his pack and hurled it through the middle of the three doors between the corridor and the main open area. When the bottle struck home, there was a screech and two Runners ran over to it. The Clicker didn't leave its spot although it looked up at the noise. That was weird; why didn't it respond to the noise? Was it settling down to make spores? Whatever; Joel wasn't a fucking biologist and he didn't care what it was doing.

The big smuggler stalked back up the corridor and exited into a low-ceilinged area (low because the upper level had partially collapsed down) in pursuit of an ex-Military runner that was muttering to itself about something. Joel was just lowering the strangled corpse to the floor when there was a horrible shriek of discovery. He looked up to see a Runner charging him from the middle door. Once, Joel probably would have frozen but that was the man he was two decades ago. Today, he smoothly pulled out the brick he had stuffed into his pack and pitched it into the Infected atrocity's face. The creature's head jerked back from the solid impact and it staggered, losing the momentum of its charge. Joel met it half-way with a flat, horizontal swing of his pipe-club. There was a loud _crunch_ as the front of the Runner's skull caved in and it was tossed back onto the ground in a spray of blood.

Nothing else responded to the Runner's attack cry or its messy death. Joel considered his options. There was a support column half-way down the area behind which stood the Clicker. Joel didn't fancy trying to sneak past that horror, so it was back out into the corridor.

A second runner emerged from behind the column, stumbling towards the same middle door out into the corridor. Trying to avoid making a noise, Joel sneaked up behind it. Not wanting to attract the Clicker's attention, he waited until the Runner was in the corridor before strangling it. Joel looked nervously over his shoulder. The Clicker was still quiescent and Joel was more-and-more sure of his ad-hoc theory that the thing was settling down to make spores.

Beyond the door by the long-derelict drinking fountain was a second runner wearing military body armour but seemingly unaware of Joel's presence. It was looking in the other direction. To keep things that way, he hurled the brick over its head and there was a loud crash as it hit the remains of the exterior windows. The Runner turned to the noise and hissed loudly, trying to detect prey. Thus it was unaware of Joel sneaking across the rain-soaked floor until the man slammed another brick he'd picked up from the fallen masonry that littered the floor into the side of its head and caved in its skull with three blows.

Joel looked around into the face of the Clicker from a distance of maybe five yards. The ruin of the Infected creature's face was looking right at Joel and the big Texan had no doubt in his mind that it had detected him during the noisy and messy elimination of the Runner. It raised its arms and took a single tentative step forwards with a faint ripping noise like a Velcro pad being torn open.

Joel pulled out his salvaged revolver and lined up his shot carefully. On the creature's third step, a 357-Magnum round punched into the centre of its chest, the impact knocking it backwards a pace. Joel re-sighted on the split mandible that passed as its top lip and fired again. The powerful pistol round blew apart the remains of creature's skull and the decapitated corpse dropped like a puppet with its strings cut.

Joel reloaded the revolver from the ammunition he'd found on one of the ex-Military Runners and swept the open area for more Infected. Nothing else moved; it seemed like this particular nest was now empty. "Alright!" he called up. "Come on down, Tess!"

Tess (with Ellie in tow) walked out of the middle door as Joel was tucking more rations and a few canteens of water into his pack. She was tucking a wooden stave into a loop on her pack. She looked around at the mess with an expression of grim approval. "I'm pretty impressed, Joel!" she remarked.

Joel gestured impatiently. "Let's just get out of here."

The way out was up onto the half-collapsed upper level, a section of which still extended from the left-hand wall. Joel clambered up onto the sloping concrete and left Tess to help their 'cargo' up. There was a dead soldier there with a Revolver with a single round remaining. Joel decided to hold the Revolver in reserve in case he needed heavy firepower. He tucked it into his pack with the three spare rounds he'd found and stuck his 9mm semi-automatic back into his waistband.

* * *

"Whoa!" Joel had to agree with Ellie. The area they had entered after an excursion through some office areas was an amazing sight. Large, open areas, probably corporate lobbies, had collapsed one after the other, leaving an open area leading right down to the basement level of the building. The view was spectacular, made stranger by the water pouring out of side corridors and the plant-life, possibly descendants of decorative plants in the offices, growing everywhere. It was like an indoor multi-level arboretum!

Tess was looking around but hadn't found any alternate routes. She gestured. "Down we go!" she remarked.

Fortunately, it wasn't as bad as it initially looked. It was possible to thread through the zig-zagging collapsed floors as if they were ramps. Finally, they emerged on the bottom level in what had once been the lobby of a corporate legal firm, by the still half-legible advertising posters and marketing brochures scattered about.

The way beyond that wasn't easy. The floor had collapsed in several places, leading into a darkened basement. Joel had to find a way through half-flooded tunnels created from partially-collapsed walls and corridors. Just to make things interesting, rain-water was pouring down from higher up in the building, creating waterfalls and currents that occasionally threated to knock the three travellers from their feet.

"Y'know… I was thinking…" Joel turned to Tess. The woman was fiddling with her Walther in a distracted way. "When this is all over and we're back home, maybe we should take it easy for a while?"

Joel stopped picking up the mechanical odds-and-ends and parts he had been scooping up and turned to face his partner. " _You_ want us to take it easy?" he couldn't help but blurt with a mocking grin.

Tess stuck her gun back in her waistband and shrugged defensively. "Hey, you're the one who's always going on about 'laying low', remember?"

Joel quirked a sceptical eyebrow. "And you're the one who's always brushing me off!"

Tess shot Joel a smile quite unlike any other that Joel remembered seeing on her normally-grim face. "Well, I won't this time."

Joel actually laughed in a way that was not mocking. "I'll believe it when I see it!" he challenged. Tess shot Joel a look of flirtatious promise before walking past him.

" _Joel and Tess, sittin' in a tree, K-I-S-S-I-N-G…_ " Ellie sang quietly as she followed the woman in her exploration.

"Quiet, you fuckin' brat!" Joel growled but without much heat.

"Joel! Over here!" Tess called out from further along. "I've found a way down!"

* * *

Joel swung his torch around the subway station underground concourse that he, Tess and Ellie had just entered through a collapsed roof. A part of Joel remembered, when he was in middle school, being shown pictures of the underground tombs of the Pharaohs of Egypt. Long sealed off, a sort of frozen shrine to a vanished world and way of life filled with artefacts that once had a purpose and were now nothing but curiosities. From the look on Ellie's face that was definitely how she saw this place.

Tess walked over to a very, very fresh corpse curled up on its belly in a corner with rifle exit wounds through its back. She crouched down and checked it out. She tapped the black armband. "Firefly."

Joel nodded. "These guys aren't doing so good, in or out of the Zone." He crouched down too and picked up something loosely cradled in its arm. It was a very professionally-made Molotov Cocktail. Joel hefted the insurgent fire-bomb thoughtfully and, finding it of good quality, tucked it away in his pack. He noticed that Ellie was thumbing through a blood-splattered pamphlet titled ' _Insurgent Ordinance – Basic Principles (Incendiary Devices)_ '. Joel snatched the how-to of building petrol bombs out of the girl's hands and tucked it into his pack too. She shot him an accusing look. "Nothin' the likes of you need to know anything about," Joel growled in response. He turned away and began to sweep the area for anything of use. "Let's just hope that there's someone alive to meet us at the drop off!"

Ellie shot Tess a worried look and Tess decided that the girl _was_ worried about this… So was she, although she told herself that this was simply because they wouldn't get their pay-off if they couldn't prove that they had completed Marlene's errand.

Joel had gone half-way up the collapsed tunnel containing the escalators up to street level. Another bullet-riddled Firefly grunt was on the emergency stairs in between the escalators. Joel looked at the map he held in the corpse's hands. "Looks like these guys were advance security for the team that was meant to take the girl to the Capitol Building. They must have run into those soldiers before the Clickers got to them."

Tess squeezed Ellie's shoulder in an attempt at some kind of reassurance. "See? They're not our guys."

The trio regrouped and walked down a side-corridor with a sign indicating that the train platforms were this way; it was the only way out; the long-ago bombing had blocked every other exit with deep piles of rubble. As they stared down the corridor, their torch beams both caught an all-too-familiar shambling figure. All three instantly ducked down behind a toppled vending machine.

Tess shook her head in frustration as she watched several Clickers shambling around in the large waiting and retail area ahead. " _Shit_. God, we're _almost out_. Okay, Joel, you take point. I'll watch the rear. Ellie, no matter what, you stay _right_ on his heels." She looked over at Joel and glared at him. "You stay sharp, you hear me?"

Joel considered their options for a moment. Unfortunately, Tess was right; there was no indication of a way out through the ruined skyscraper above. The only way out seemed to be to be through the Clicker-infested station. "Okay," he murmured. "Everyone remember to stay _totally quiet_. Check your every step and stay in close."

With extreme care, Joel began to crouch-walk into the open area. He swept his torch beam around; directly ahead was a seating area surrounded by wooden partitions, once topped with windows to either each side. Either side of that were rows of concessions – the usual variety of news-stands, food vendors and even book stores. On the far side were gates leading out onto the train platforms; Joel saw the sparkle of natural light that indicated that there was a way back up to the surface there. Naturally, it wasn't as easy as that. There were also several cave-ins.

To the left, a Runner in military gear was feasting on something, possibly a former colleague. Joel somehow resisted the urge to hold his breath as a Clicker shambled past with the type's distinctive jerky step close enough to touch. When it was past, Joel jumped up and rammed a fresh shiv into the side of its neck. The creature crumpled with a loud hissing breath. Joel looked around but nothing seemed to have noticed. Not liking the thought of something potentially threatening alive behind him, he then sneaked over to the Runner and wrung its neck.

The left-hand side shops were a dead end; the impact of the bombs had caused the way through to the platform gates to collapse on that side but it was the only way except through the trap of the waiting area; the way to the right-hand shops had also caved in. The shops yielded some potentially useful supplies. However, it was pretty clear that it was going to be difficult to sneak past the horde of Clickers that infested the area, assuming that it was even possible. The things kept coming out into the side walkways and the three companions were forced to lie low and quiet several times until one had passed them by.

Joel lowered a dead Clicker to the floor in the entranceway to a convenience store, leaving the snapped-off blade of the shiv in its neck. "I hate these things," Ellie murmured.

There was no choice but to double-back. Fortunately, Joel was able to lure the Clickers over to the far side of the main waiting area with a few well-placed thrown bottles and bricks, enabling the travellers to sneak through the waiting area to the area near the platform turnstiles. Joel hissed in anger when he realised that the gates were blocked by a Clicker _and_ were obviously padlocked. The other Clickers would certainly be attracted by the noise of them forcing them open and it was even money if they could be closed again afterwards to keep the horrors from pursuing them.

Joel's mind raced. He didn't have enough quiet weapons to take out all of them. If he started shooting then the creatures would swarm; it took two or three hits to kill one, so they might overrun their group while they were reloading… The man frowned. Maybe he was looking at this the wrong way?

After getting Tess and Ellie to take shelter in the book store, Joel stepped out back into the corridor "Don't do anything crazy," Tess murmured, her scowl filled with fearful warning.

"'Crazy' was takin' on this job," Joel responded idly and threw a bottle down the length of the walkway to shatter against the cave-in at the far end.

Entirely as expected, the Clickers angled towards the noise and emerged into the walkway. "Okay…" he murmured to himself, pulling out the Molotov he'd salvaged from the dead Firefly. With a flick of his zippo, he lit the ignition rag and hurled it at the mass of Clickers.

It was a little-known fact that Cordyceps mycelium were highly flammable. As well as the strands on the nervous system, more grew on the skin, possibly part of the parasite's sensory system. Whatever their purpose might be, it made Infected incredibly vulnerable to fire if ignited. This was borne out now as the five Clickers at the other end of the walkway were turned into writhing, screeching blazing torches, most of which collapsed in seconds and were rapidly consumed by the hungry flame.

One staggered out of the inferno, somehow able to keep moving despite being an ambulatory distress flare. Joel stepped forwards and performed a perfect high-sweep with his pipe-club, practically knocking the creature's head off.

"Whoa!" Ellie's voice echoed as she gazed at the blazing remains of the Clickers.

Tess squeezed the girl's shoulder. "Keep it down; we don't know if there are any more down here!"

There were; Joel had already seen the Clicker standing by the gates. It was strange that it had not responded to the cacophony of the incineration of the others; maybe it was old and settling down to make spores?

Joel ducked back into the bookstore. As the note in the confectionary shop promised, there was a safe that, when opened, revealed long-useless money and some useful stuff like some spare parts and a box with around a half-dozen 38-calibre pistol bullets. Joel ignored them but Tess scooped them up.

Joel stalked towards the last Clicker, obviously a former soldier, from its clothing. The creature was definitely not interested in prey anymore and didn't seem aware of what was happening until Joel swung his pipe-club into its ugly mostly-gone face. Two more blows to the belly and head doubled it over and exploded the mass of brain and fungus that was all that remained of its skull.

A quick check confirmed that they weren't getting through the gates onto the platforms without a cutting torch. Fortunately, there was the bottom of a ladder jutting out above from a set of overhead maintenance catwalks. Joel boosted Tess up; the woman grabbed the bottom rung of the ladder and hauled it down.

Suddenly, Ellie shouted a warning. Joel looked up and saw a pair of Clickers clambering over the wooden partition from the waiting area. "Shit! So _close_!" Joel pulled out his Colt and sighted on the centre of the chest of the first charging Clicker. No time and no margin to try something fancy; he put four rounds into the creature's chest; like most things, the Clicker had a hard time moving with its heart blown into shreds of meat and collapsed. Joel hurriedly reloaded; two bullets weren't enough to stop or even significantly slow a Clicker…

Before he could get a shot off, Tess fired three shots from her recently-acquired 38-calibre revolver. The last Clicker staggered back and collapsed. "Come on, up! Go!" Joel gestured to the ladder. Tess practically flew up and swept the maintenance area with her torch and revolver. Ellie was up after her and Joel brought up the rear. As soon as he was up, he grabbed the ladder and hauled it up after him. No sense giving anything, human or once-human, an easier path to follow to find them!

After dropping down onto what had once been the Orange Line platforms, the three travellers found it relatively easy to scale the collapsed tunnel and road structure back onto the surface.

The dawn was creeping up over the horizon; Ellie stood still in the sunlight and just gloried in being out in the open and the light again. "Holy shit…! We actually made it!" She turned to her two escorts and actually _grinned_ at them as if the whole thing had been nothing but a fun adventure! "You guys are pretty good at this stuff!"

"It's called 'luck'," Joel snapped before striding past the girl and out to a road junction marked with a shallow but significant bomb crater. "It _is_ going to run out. Which way are we goin' now, Tess?"

Tess paused for a moment then pointed to the left. Everyone saw the sparkle of light off of the bronze dome. "The Capitol Building is that way."

 _To be continued…_


	8. Summer - Downtown Boston Part 2

**The Last of Us**

Based on the story by Neil Drukmann

 **Disclaimer**

 _The Last of Us_ was written for Naughty Dog on behalf of Sony Computer Entertainment by Neil Drukmann and Bruce Straley. It is a trademark property of Sony Computer Entertainment. This is a not-for-profit fan-work for free distribution through the world-wide web. No infringement of trademark or copyright is intended.

 **Author's Notes**

I haven't seen a decent 'straight' novelisation of the game story so far and it was this that led me to start work on this. However, as I continued, I decided that, whilst I will be avoiding OCs, I wasn't content to just turn Neil Drukmann's fine story into a narrative story form. There was one change about which I had lots of ideas. With encouragement of a few other fans of the game, I decided to take this story in this new direction. I hope that I won't be changing any of the key points and themes but I really, really wanted to make this change.

You'll see what I mean in time.

Censor – M – Violence, profanity and description of death and disease

 **Act 1 – Summer**

 **Chapter 7 – Downtown Boston, Part 2 (Echoes of the Past)**

The three travellers had found themselves in a remarkably peaceful corner of the ruins of Boston. Even with the Goldstone Building looming overhead (tilting _away_ from the road they were standing in, which was better for Joel's peace of mind), the sun was warming up the area nicely.

Joel had finished scouting around the crossroads at the centre of a set of low-rise brownstone buildings and had found nothing of interest. Tess and Ellie were standing by a semi-trailer that someone had somehow manoeuvred so that it completely blocked the street from one wall to the opposite wall. Joel figured that someone had been trying to set up some kind of barrier to keep out Infected before the evacuation into the Quarantine Zone began. "We need some way over this truck," Tess announced. "With all the streets around here bombed out or collapsed into the subway tunnels, this is the safest way to get through to the Capitol Building; definitely the quickest anyway. Look around and see if you can find anything to help us get over, Joel."

Joel decided to try what had once been a bank on the corner of the crossroads opposite the Goldstone Building. The doors were gone; probably torn off during the rioting in the period between the Outbreak and the formation of the Zones. It was weird, looking back to that time. The world was coming to an end so people wanted to take as many pieces of paper as they could find! Pre-Outbreak definitions of 'value' had long since been demonstrated to be delusional; it was probably one of the few things about the world that was that Joel honestly didn't miss.

" _Joel!_ " Joel didn't need Ellie's urgent hiss of warning. He hadn't been so far gone in his introspection that he missed the threat before he even reached the doorway. The interior of the bank was a wreck; the rioters had torn out most of the furniture, leaving just an open wood-panelled box with impressive stone columns at the corners. More importantly, there were three Runners standing around in their hunched 'resting' position that most Infected took when they weren't actively hunting.

"What do we do?"

Joel shot the girl an ironic look. " _We_ ain't doing nothin'. You go and stand with Tess, girl."

After considering the placement of the three Infected inside the room, Joel decided to take this slow and safe. He slowly advanced on the nearest, only too sensible that the slowly rotting wooden floor beneath him could betray him with a creak or groan at any moment. The way around it was to spend as little time on the floor as possible.

After wringing the neck of the nearest Runner, Joel carefully backtracked out of the building and then ran around to the side entrance, gaping open just like the first. Once again, Joel was able to sneak in silently and take down the second Runner without making too much sound.

The last one promised to be a bit more challenging. It… it used to be a 'she' but Joel refused to apply such personal terms to the creatures that were all that was left after Cordyceps snuffed out someone's humanity… was on the far side of the room beside a closed heavy wooden door leading into the bank's interior. Joel swallowed, pulled his battered but still usable pipe-club off of his backpack loop and slowly began to creep forwards towards the last Runner.

 _Luck runs out_ was a mantra of Joel's and it was borne out when, less than half-way to his target, a floorboard let out a creak that was practically deafening in the silence of the bank's grand room. The Runner looked up with a snarl, its blind eyes shining in the gloom. Joel didn't hesitate; he took two paces forwards and delivered a swinging overhand blow to the creature's face, sending it staggering back into a wall. Joel reversed his swing and drove the curved end of the pipe into the Runner's face again. Infected, even recently Infected, tended to start rotting from the inside in some way. The progressive destruction of their body tissues for nutrients by the Cordyceps made their bodies extra-fragile. So, Joel wasn't surprised when the Runner's head exploded like a ripe melon, painting the wall with blood, brain matter and glowing yellow lumps of Cordyceps fungal core.

Joel looked at the broken-off end of the pipe and with a curse, threw it aside. A change in the light levels forewarned him of Ellie and Tess appearing at the front entrance of the bank. Tess knelt down by the first Runner Joel had taken down and poked at its body armour thoughtfully. "Are all these guys soldiers, Joel?" Joel looked up from where he was considering a heavy set of drawers on caster wheels that was sitting in the middle of the floor. He nodded once in response to Tess's query and then began to push his find towards the entrance; it would serve his needs adequately. Tess frowned. "They weren't turned long ago."

"Which means whatever Turned them is still in the area and more besides," Joel growled. "We gotta go!"

Joel manoeuvred the drawers alongside the trailer and hauled himself on top of it before clambering up onto the trailer's roof. A quick check showed no indication of any Infected on either side of the barrier. Of course, all that meant was that none had come this way… _yet_. "Okay, climb on up!" he called.

Ellie ran over and was up on the roof surprisingly quickly. Joel jumped down on the other side and began to scout around for another way out. There was certainly no way through on street level. A brownstone had partially collapsed and its rooftop water tank, a gigantic thing, had fallen sideways into the street, creating a smooth-sided ten-foot-high unscalable curved wall.

To one side were roller-shutters to a loading dock of some kind. The chain for the pulley seemed in good order and so did the raising mechanism as best as Joel could tell. "Maybe we can cut through here," he mused.

"Yeah, that one worked out great last time!" Joel looked over at Ellie who was posed in practically a parody of a 'smartass little girl' posture, one hand on a cocked hip, a smirk on her lips. Joel glared angrily at the teenager in a way that made her wilt slightly. It probably would have been more effective if Tess hadn't had to hurriedly muffle her snigger behind her hand. "Sorry… I'm just sayin'…" the girl attempted to apologise.

With a growl of annoyance (and it was amazing how often the little brat was making him do that), Joel turned back to the chain and began to haul. Despite two decades of neglect, the roller shutter began to groan upwards hand-over-hand. Tess suddenly hissed for silence. "Did you hear that?"

Joel looked around. "I didn't hear nothing…" There was a loud, inhuman screech that was created by a human voice and it was _far_ too close by.

"Okay, double-time!" Tess snapped out, fear sending her voice up an octave.

"Shit! Look!" Joel did the dumb thing and did just that in response to Ellie's panicked cry. At least two Runners were standing on top of the semi-trailer and glaring down at them. Several more were clambering up with them. "They're coming!"

"I KNOW!" Joel replied, hauling on the chain for all he was worth as the first Runner leapt down into the street and began to charge them.

Tess shoved Ellie towards the shutters "That's enough! Under now! Go! Go!" Ellie and Tess dived through the barely hip-high space. Tess jumped back onto her feet and grabbed the shutter with a growl of effort and discomfort, struggling to hold it open.

"Okay, Joel! Come on!" Ellie shrieked.

Joel barely escaped the clawing fingers of the first few Runners as he threw himself under the shutters with a shout of "DROP IT!" Tess and Ellie jumped back as Joel yanked his feet back inside, just barely getting clear of the shutter as it slammed down with a loud crash. Tess hauled her partner to his feet as the Runners beat relentlessly on the unyielding metal, screaming their frustrated hunger. With every deafening blow, all three jumped back a pace.

After a long few moments, everyone's breathing and pulse rates dropped back down below 'crisis' level. Ellie noticed something and looked downwards. What she saw made her pale. "Uh… Joel? You've… you've got something on your shoe!"

Joel looked down too and grunted in annoyance. One of the Runners had clearly got hold of his ankle. The falling shutter had sliced through the Infected's festering arm like a cleaver and the lower arm, ending just above the elbow, was still firmly attached to its prospective prey. Joel shook it off without any change of expression. It might be a horror to Ellie but he'd seen far worse things in his time. "Okay, so how do we get out of this place, oh fearless leader?" he snarked to Tess.

Tess shot Joel a sour look. "We'll have to find out but there's no rush. The place seems secure; it would be smart to wait until the ruckus dies down just a bit." Tess jerked her head towards the shutters where the Runners were still pounding and shrieking. "Let's see what we can find here."

* * *

The two smugglers spread out and began to search what was clearly a combined loading dock and garage area for any useful stuff that had been left behind when this part of Boston had been evacuated nearly two decades ago. It quickly became clear that the place had once been a treasure-trove. One-of-a-kind artworks and irreplaceable historical documents were boxed and lying around, both on the loading dock and in the back of the small truck parked in the middle of the space. They were clearly had all awaiting evacuation to the hidden national archives somewhere to wait until the crisis had passed. Now, they were just kindling, firelighters, rot and dust waiting to happen.

However, Joel almost immediately found something interesting. The garage area had a fully-equipped work bench and engineering station. More surprising was that, when he tried it, the high-wattage angle-poise lamp snapped on. Even more shockingly, the soldering iron powered up. He guessed that the building had solar panels on the roof as an emergency power source and that, by luck, the cabling hadn't decayed or been damaged yet. There was enough stuff lying around that he was able to do something he'd wanted to do for a while and do some equipment maintenance on their guns.

After cleaning both his and Tess's pistols and ensuring that the cylinder swing on the revolvers were lubricated to allow a quicker reload, he turned his attention to the nine-millimetre semi-automatics' magazines. In the last few years before the Outbreak, the government had been taking increasingly stringent measures to control gun violence. One of these measures had been rules to limit magazine sizes on semi-automatic-loading rifles to ten rounds, shotguns to four rounds and pistols to six rounds. Most weapons outside of FEDRA's military these days conformed to those standards. However, Joel knew a way around this. He hadn't done it before because being caught with a technically legal pistol was bad but survivable; being caught with one that had been customised outside FEDRA's regulations (before private ownership of weapons was outlawed altogether about a decade back) was fatal. Something told him that such subtlety wasn't going to be an issue for him and Tess for a while from now.

Tess, meanwhile, had found large 50-gallon water bottles with their seals still intact. It was unlikely that there hadn't been any contamination from the plastic in the bottles themselves but it was still water and anyone who had lived in the QZ for any length of time had built up resistance to a certain level of contamination in water.

After filling up all the small 2-litre bottles she and Joel had in their packs, she filled up a pair of tin cups and walked over to where Ellie was sitting on the edge of the loading dock. She offered the titian-haired girl one of the cups and the two of them sat down together in silence for a while.

After a moment watching Joel work, Tess turned her attention to her 'cargo'. Ellie was reading a small pamphlet she'd found lying inside the truck's cab whilst chewing meditatively on a chunk of ration bar. It had been written by some group called the 'CDC' and contained details of how CBI affected people. It was obviously very old; probably from shortly after the outbreak given the relative lack of details about anything worse than Runners.

There was something cute about Ellie's concentration. Tess restrained the urge to mess up the girl's hair. Instead, she nudged her shoulder gently. She didn't know what she had been thinking of saying but, seeing the pamphlet that she vaguely remembered from those terrifying few years between Outbreak and Collapse decided the direction of her thoughts. "So, Marlene thinks that you're immune to Cordyceps?"

Credit where it was due, Ellie managed to stay cool despite Tess treading on sensitive ground. She looked up at Tess for a moment before replying in an equivocal tone. "Well, that's what she _believes_ , yeah."

Tess nodded. "How were you bitten? I mean, you must have been somewhere you shouldn't to have found Infected in the Zone!"

Ellie sighed slightly. She folded up the pamphlet and tucked it into her pack. "I was in the military boarding school for orphans. It was… well, 'boring' don't really cover it. So, I'd sneak out whenever I could."

Tess blinked in surprise. "You'd 'sneak out'?"

Ellie couldn't help but offer the smuggler a fey smile. "Easier than you'd expect. Anyway, I wanted to explore the city and the like. I was in the Mall when I was bitten."

Tess couldn't help but be impressed. There was _so much_ salvage in that place…! If she and Joel could get in, they could earn enough Cards to set them up for _years_! "That place is so completely off-limits! How did you get in there?"

Ellie shrugged vaguely. "I… I've got my ways. Anyways, I was in there when one of those… What do you call 'em? The ones that still look mostly human and alive?"

"Runners."

"Yeah, Runners. One of them bit me. That was that."

"So, you were with Marlene when this happened?"

Ellie shook her head. "No, I was with Ri…" Tess's shrewd eyes caught Ellie's wince and wasn't surprised by the girl's next words. "I was with one of my friends. She didn't make it. I went to Marlene for help when I realised that I hadn't Turned."

Tess snorted. "I'm surprised she didn't shoot you on sight!"

"She almost did!" Ellie sighed. "I hope she's alright."

"She's a survivor," Joel growled. Ellie and Tess both looked up as the big Texan joined them. "She's going to be fine." The big man passed Tess her Walther and Smith &Wesson 10V 38-calibre Police Special. "I've taken out the mag size limiter, so you can fit eight rounds per magazine. The revolver was in good order but I've eased the spring on the trigger a touch to make it easier and quicker to fire. Be careful with it; it'll be a bit more hair-trigger now than before."

Tess dropped the Police Special into her pack and tucked her Walther into the waistband at the back of her jeans. She got up and helped Ellie up too. "Okay, we've all rested up enough; let's get moving."

* * *

 _CRASH!_

" _Shit_! Sorry! That was me! My bad!"

Joel growled and squeezed the bridge of his nose to hold back the early threat of an oncoming headache. Like most kids, Ellie just couldn't help but touch stuff. In this case, big, heavy, fragile and probably priceless stuff that had just smashed on the floor and likely brought every Infected in earshot running. "Tess," he said in an elaborately calm voice.

Tess scowled at a grimacing and remorseful-looking Ellie and yanked the girl close to her side. " _You… stick… close_!" the woman snapped.

" _Sorry!_ " Ellie squeaked quietly and sounded like she meant it.

Joel hauled himself up to the second storey using the collapsed ceiling as a makeshift ramp. He swung his torch beam around the room, tracking with his nine-millimetre and alert for any sign that Ellie's clumsiness had attracted attention of the worst kind. Thankfully, that bullet seemed to have been dodged.

Joel picked up the ID tag of Michael Kiper, Firefly #000109 and decided to take it as a good sign – He and Tess were still going in the right direction.

He watched as Tess and Ellie worked their way up the 'ramp'. Ellie looked around the room, her brow puckering in confusion. Joel couldn't blame her. Inside the Zone, anyone who wasn't a high-ranking FEDRA functionary or ranking Lieutenant Colonel or above didn't tend to see stuff like real oil paintings, sculptures and the like. Ellie had probably never seen anything close to this gallery of the treasures of the old world. "What _is_ this place?"

Tess looked up from where she was picking up a bottle of multivitamins that had been sitting on a window-sill. "It's an old museum. Most of this stuff was hundreds of years old!"

"Used to be pretty much priceless, too," Joel noted. "Places like this were guarded and this stuff had armies of folk that kept it safe and intact!"

"Really? Wow!" Ellie looked at a certain famous picture of George Washington crossing the Delaware River with his men. She'd seen a photo of this picture in her history book at school but there was something about seeing the much larger original. She had an interesting question: "So, if this shit is so valuable, why did FEDRA leave it here to rot? I mean… shouldn't they have taken it to the Zone to keep it safe from bandits and the like?"

Joel had never been into history or museums; he was a practical man at heart. Nonetheless, he saw Ellie's point; one day this would be gone and people would forget it had ever been. "Times change," he opined after a brief pause. "Stuff that used to be important…? Well, if it don't help you find food, shelter and keep the Infected off your back, then it's just is a lot of trouble and lives at risk for no gain now."

There was some indication that the museum's evacuation was unexpected and early. As they searched the second storey galleries, Joel and Tess found lots of tools and bits lying around that might prove useful. However, it was clear that time was catching up with this place. The only way through to the other side of the building was blocked by a collapsed ceiling.

Joel and Tess shone their torch on the mess blocking a doorway. Heavy lumps of concrete and fallen timbers. Neither of them liked the look of it. Finally, Joel made up his mind. "Okay, I think I can lever the rubble out of the way with this beam. You've got to get under fast, okay? Don't know how long I can hold that load."

With a growl of discomfort, Joel hauled down on the beam, lifting several hundred pounds of fallen concrete and brick up and giving a relatively tiny crawl-space for the other two. "Okay, now watch your head and hurry! Go! Go! Go… _shit_ …!"

Ellie had just followed Tess through the gap when the beam suddenly snapped with a deafening _crack_ that would have echoed through the building if it hadn't been drowned out by the roar of falling rubble. Joel rolled back and out of the way, making like a turtle and covering his head. After a few moments, the sound of falling brick and concrete stopped.

"Joel!" Tess's voice had a sound of urgent terror that roused Joel at once.

"I'm still alive!" he called back. With the partially-collapsed ceiling, there was no way Joel could stand up straight. He crouch-walked over to the door; there was no way they were moving that mess in anything less than an hour. "I'll have to make my way around to you. Find somewhere secure and I'll find…"

Ellie suddenly looked over her shoulder and gasped in fear. "Tess! Look, they're here!"

Tess looked too and cursed angrily, yanking out her semi-automatic pistol. " _Damn it_! Run! _Run_!" The woman and girl fled and, a few seconds later, Joel found out why as two Clickers, rattling and crackling in their inhuman way, staggered past.

Joel crouched in the partially collapsed room for a seeming age. " _Tess_ …!"

* * *

After getting out of the nightmare maze of partially-collapsed rooms, Joel found himself at one end of a long corridor stretching the length of the building. He was very much in enemy territory and could clearly hear the hollow crackling of Clickers' echo-location calls in the rooms to one side.

The man's mind was spinning with worry for his partner. Joel had always tried to keep things professional and business-like with Tess but now, with her missing and in this Infected-filled death-trap of a museum, he admitted that he'd failed. She was a friend… Maybe she was more; it didn't matter really. The point was that he had once again proven his maxim that developing emotional connections was bad for the head in this post-Outbreak world where they could be taken away at any moment. Even the _thought_ of Tess made Joel hiss out a breath in despair.

Suddenly, he had something else to worry about as a Clicker lurched through the door from the corridor. The big man froze and, miraculously, the creature didn't seem to detect him. It wandered past and turned into the exhibition galleries running along the length of the building beyond the corridor.

The time had come to stop worrying and start acting. Staying as quiet as he could, Joel snuck up behind the creature and followed it through the door. Once into the square room, Joel lunged forward and drove his top-quality shiv into the side of its throat, ripping open its trachea and the blood vessels. The Clicker made a shuddering gasp and crumpled; Joel lowered it quietly to the floor.

To one side a room led into a far larger gallery with, of all things, a horse-drawn carriage as its centrepiece. Joel looked around the semi-darkened room and held in a curse; making a noise right now wouldn't be healthy. There were at least four and possibly as many as six Clickers lurching about the space. Joel mentally catalogued his weapons – He had a shiv that was probably good for a couple of more uses, fourteen rounds for his nine-millimetre semi-auto and nine rounds for his revolver. Theoretically enough to disinfect this room but Joel knew that his chances would be a lot less in reality; the way the things tended to swarm loud noises would overwhelm him quickly.

So, as Tess always advised, he decided to do things smart. He quietly retraced his steps back to the corridor. After sneaking through the doors from the junction room into the corridor properly, Joel noted another Clicker patrolling up and down the corridor. Sucking in a deep breath and taking his courage in hand, he waited until the Infected creature turned around and began to creep along behind it.

When the corridor opened up to the left, Joel ducked inside, hoping to find some position from which he could explore the area without having to dodge around Clickers.

The former fast-food concession was Infected-free, which was a good start. Joel quickly snuck through the space to duck behind the counter. " _Tess…? Shit!_ " Well, it was probably too much to hope for that Tess was hiding out somewhere here; he had to check though. The area yielded some supplies, including a can of FEDRA rations and enough bits that Joel was able to knock together a basic shiv.

Joel couldn't resist using it immediately to get access to a store-room to the left of the wide doorway out into the corridor. The expenditure was almost immediately rewarded. The place was survivalist's goldmine with a full first-aid kit, some FEDRA meal bars, a pallet of bottles of water and a sealed tool kit without a hint of rust on the tools. Best of all, Joel found a couple of half-empty boxes of ammo for his semi-automatic and revolver. _Someone_ had this set up as a store of supplies although the layer of dust on everything suggested to Joel that whoever had done so hadn't visited for a long time.

Joel peeked out of the concession back into the corridor and found that his head was clearer. _Good, I'm no good to Tess if I'm so messed up I can't think!_ He flung a glass bottle that he'd grabbed from behind the counter into the far gallery. With a hiss, the Clicker guarding the end of the corridor lunged into the gallery and Joel could hear the frantic rattling as the creatures all tried to locate the source of the loud sound.

Joel double-timed it as quietly as he could to the corridor and found that the Clicker had been standing by an open door. Joel ducked through and closed it behind him.

* * *

The Runner that was furiously trying to smash open the door at the end of the top floor corridor was so focussed on its task that it didn't notice Joel's approach until he wrapped his arms around its throat in a sleeper hold and choked its life out.

Joel dropped the corpse when he heard the familiar voice from beyond the door. "Ellie, stay back…! _Get the fuck off of me!_ " He didn't bother with niceties but simply kicked the door inwards. Inside was a cluttered store-room filled with likely-priceless pieces of history and works of art. At the far end, Tess was bent over backwards over a low cabinet table by a Runner that was trying to tear her apart. The woman had a wooden stave across its throat but was barely holding if off. Joel yanked his newly-crafted reinforce wooden club out and charged towards the confrontation but it wasn't necessary. Tess got her boot into the Runner's gut and pushed back. This gave her enough breathing room to smack it in the side of the head. As the Runner reeled back, Tess was able to get back upright and deliver a far stronger blow to the side its head, basically smashing off the front of its skull.

"I… I'm fine," Tess snapped at Joel as he reached her side, all but brushing off his concern. Suddenly, Ellie cried out in fear from somewhere beyond the storeroom. "The girl!" Tess immediately tossed the remains of her club aside and lunged through another door into a gallery stretching across the width of the building.

The problem with Runners is that they rarely, if ever, came alone. They almost inevitably seemed to come in packs and they tended to _swarm_. Just in front of Joel, a Runner was trying to get a bite of Ellie whilst more were charging in from two archways into another, larger gallery to the left.

Joel yanked his revolver out of his waistband and put a 357-Magnum bullet through the temples of the Runner planning to snack down on the 'cargo'. Two more Runners were charging forwards from the opposite end of the gallery. To his left, Joel heard Tess's Walther firing and saw four blood-red rosettes splash into being on one's chest, sending it tumbling back onto the floor. Joel lined up his gun on the other and tried another head-shot. The window behind the Runner shattered. Joel didn't indulge himself with a curse but re-aimed and put a bullet into the creature's chest, making it stagger.

"Joel, to your left!" There was no time to do anything in response to Ellie's shout except raise his left elbow to get it in the Runner's throat and block its attempted bite. The big man shoved back, causing the Runner to stagger back against the wall. With an opening, Joel was able to get the upper hand. He stuck his gun back in his waistband and delivered a bone-crushing one-two punch to the creature's face; stepping forward, he grabbed it by the back of the head and rammed it face-first into a display cabinet. Cordyceps-weakened bone met aged hardwood and the wood won out. Looking up, he saw Tess slam a brick into the side of the head of the Runner he'd shot a few moments ago, finishing it off.

Another Runner charged out of the archway but Joel was prepared. He pulled out and swung his new improvised club. He was quite proud of this construction – a long, thick wooden tool shaft with metal shelf-frames duct-taped around the corners to give it more strength. The first head-height swing sent the creature staggering sideways. The second caved in its face and sent it down for the long count.

There was no time to take stock. At the far end of the larger gallery, at least eight more Runners were coming in through a window leading out to some kind of balcony, perhaps a fire escape of some sort. The majority were charging along the far wall. Joel's racing mind was 'in the zone' and gave him a plan, fully prepared in an instant. Reaching into his pack, he pulled out a Molotov, ignited it and threw it at the mob as they reached a display showing a model of a mounted Minuteman horseman and began to split up, some heading for Joel and the other to the far arch into the gallery where Tess and Ellie were.

As with all Infected, the Runners were vulnerable to fire and the majority went up like road flares. There was no time to deal with any that escaped the fire because one Runner had done an end run across the end of the gallery and now was charging right at Joel. He yanked out his revolver again, put a bullet into its chest, making it stagger. He took a moment to aim and put a second bullet into its forehead, ending its mockery of a life.

" _Joel!_ " Joel swivelled and saw something from his nightmares. Tess had been grabbed by a very large Runner and had staggered back against a bench, catching the back of her knees and forcing her down into a sitting position. The Runner had the advantage of leverage and was using it to try to get a bite in. Pulling a brick he'd grabbed earlier out of the pack, Joel raced into the room, ready to knock the Infected horror away. Then he heard another inhuman screech from a human mouth. Another Runner was charging right at him from the far end of the small gallery. Joel slammed the brick it into the charging creature's face. A second blow followed and, with the third, he felt its skull shatter.

" _Hey, asshole! Chew on this!_ " There was a sound of glass shattering; the girl? Joel whirled back to his partner to see the Runner staggering away from Tess and Ellie, posed aggressively with a broken bottle in her hand. Tess was still on the bench, looking stunned; there wasn't time for pretty tactics; Joel yanked out his revolver and, sighting carefully, blew the Runner's Infected brains all over the wall.

For now, the fight seemed over. Joel stormed over to Ellie. "God damn it!" he roared, jabbing a finger in her face. "Have you got a fuckin' _death wish_? From now on you _stay out of the line of fire and don't get in the…_ "

"Joel!" Joel shot Ellie a dirty glare before turning to Tess. "Joel, it's okay! If… if she hadn't… If she hadn't knocked that thing off of me…"

Tess looked badly rattled, something that Joel wasn't used to with his normally ice-cool partner. Then he noticed that she was holding open a ragged tear in the shoulder of her blouse. "Jesus, Tess! Are you okay? _Did it bite you_?"

Tess managed to give him a shaky smile. "Close, but not today. It was about to chow down on me; if she hadn't knocked that thing off at that very moment, it might be a different story!" Tess looked over at Ellie who was glaring at Joel resentfully. "I guess that's one we owe her."

Joel hissed out a breath. He wanted to say something like: 'No, it's one _you_ owe her' but, somehow, he wasn't able to force the lie across his tongue. Finally, he chose to deal with his feelings by swinging open his revolver's cylinder, ejecting the spent brass and reloading it.

* * *

After reloading their guns, quickly sweeping the two galleries and finding nothing more useful than a couple of bricks, the three stood beside the window through which the Runners had been entering. As Joel had expected, there was a fire escape running up to the roof.

Tess was unnaturally pale and seemed distracted, rubbing at the shoulder where she had a near-miss with Infection. Joel could empathise; it had been too close and with just a bit too much time to think about it before the moment of truth. He reached over and put a hand on her shoulder. "Hey, you okay?"

The woman sucked in a breath and shot her partner a defiant glare. "Just winded," she insisted. "Come on; let's get up to the roof. I bet we'll be able to find a path from up there."

As Tess ducked through the window, carefully sweeping around herself with her Walther as she did so, Joel turned to Ellie. The girl had been standing with awkward posture nearby. Joel couldn't help but be impressed by her ability to just shrug off the carnage and keep functioning but she _was_ only a kid. Remembering his manners, he moderated his voice a little. "How about you, kid? You okay?"

Ellie offered him a shaky smile. "Define 'okay'."

Joel rolled his eyes. "Are you still breathin'?" he clarified.

"Do short, panicked gasps count?" Joel nodded with a humourless expression. "Then I'm okay," the girl confirmed.

"Hey!" Tess called from outside. "Let's pick it up!"

On the roof, Tess was standing, looking out over the cityscape of post-apocalyptic Boston at a bronze dome shining in the dawn's light. The brunette woman gestured at the distant landmark. "There she is!"

Joel considered the location. He had no intention of going back down to street level. However, there was another option. The roof of the next building was very close; it was possible that there was only a narrow alleyway between them. It was too far to jump but… Ah! Good!

A few moments later, Joel had the bit of builder's lumber he'd found on the roof set across the gap. He turned to Ellie, who had been looking around her with an expression of wonder. "Okay, kid, you're up first. Now, watch your step because it's gonna be a little…" Ellie brushed off Joel's incipient lecture about plank-walking safety with a sound of disgusted contempt before agilely clambering up onto the plank and confidently walking across to the next roof.

Joel looked over to Tess who… _was the bitch laughing at him_? If she was, she hid it well. She raised her eyebrows and gestured for him to follow Ellie over.

Joining Ellie at the far end of the roof, Joel considered how the girl was looking at the skyline. There was something about how she was reacting that made him think that it wasn't just naiveté. There was something genuine about her wonder for this ruin of a world from before she was even born. Being outside the walls of the Zone really did mean something to her. He couldn't help but hope that the hell of the real world wouldn't break that wonder too cruelly. "So, is it everything that you hoped for?" he asked.

"Jury's still out," the girl conceded. "But… man! You can't deny that view!"

* * *

With a disgusted growl, Joel tossed aside the orders that had been carried by the unfortunate Firefly they found in the backyard of a square of tenements. It hadn't told him anything that he didn't know, other than the growing gnawing in his gut that this was going to turn out to be a wasted trip. He surprised himself by actually thinking about what they were going to do with Ellie and how she might fit into his growing determination to quit Boston.

"Is there gonna be anyone left to meet us?" Ellie asked fearfully.

"Yes, there will," Tess snapped. Maybe Joel only imagined it as he dropped the two 357-calibure bullets he'd grabbed off of the dead insurgent into his ammo pouch but it sounded like Tess had whispered. " _There_ has _to be someone left!_ "

After getting across the roof of an area sealed off for never-to-be-completed maintenance work, the three travellers ended up in a wide boulevard. Dodging around a few long-abandoned police barriers, they found themselves standing within spitting distance of the Massachusetts State Capitol Building. Joel didn't make any comments about luck but it figured that there would be one last problem. Something had flooded Derne Street and turned the whole front approach to the building into a lake.

"Um… Just to get this out there… I can't swim." Joel looked over at Ellie. _That_ figured too.

"It's shallower on the right-hand side," Tess responded neutrally. "Stay on that side and you should be okay."

As they waded into the water, Ellie suddenly spoke up. "Y'know, I'm glad that Marlene hired you guys!"

Joel, seeing a sparkle of light off of metal struck out to a rotunda at the street end of the flooded courtyard. He figured that either the Charles or Bass River had to have burst their long-unmaintained levies and banks and then flooded this part of downtown sometime recently, given that there was an old _tour boat_ rammed up against the railings.

Meanwhile, Tess looked at Ellie in surprise. "What do you mean?"

Ellie blushed slightly. "Look, I know that you guys are gettin' paid to get my ass here but… What I'm saying is… I'm trying to say 'thanks', okay? I doubt that I'll have time later; the other Fireflies will probably want to get me out of the city now rather than later."

Tess couldn't help but smile slightly. Being told 'thank you' was a rare enough thing, these days. "Yeah… sure thing."

The woman and the girl slogged out of the flood and mounted the stairs to the grand entrance of the building. Joel was a minute or so behind them, still looking thoughtfully at the ID pendent of Melinda Davidson, Firefly #000214. As he walked up to the door, he pulled out his revolver. He nodded at Tess, who had her Walther ready. The two smugglers pushed together and the doors burst open.

Inside was a scene of carnage. At least five Fireflies; from their injuries, they'd been hit by Clickers. Joel looked around and noted three of the Infected horrors, all riddled with bullet-holes. He was snapped out of his contemplation by Tess's cry of rage. "No, _no,_ NO!" she shouted, her voice breaking in fury and despair.

 _To be continued…_


	9. Summer - Downtown Boston Part 3

**The Last of Us**

Based on the story by Neil Drukmann

 **Disclaimer**

 _The Last of Us_ was written for Naughty Dog on behalf of Sony Computer Entertainment by Neil Drukmann and Bruce Straley. It is a trademark property of Sony Computer Entertainment. This is a not-for-profit fan-work for free distribution through the world-wide web. No infringement of trademark or copyright is intended.

 **Author's Notes**

I haven't seen a decent 'straight' novelisation of the game story so far and it was this that led me to start work on this. However, as I continued, I decided that, whilst I will be avoiding OCs, I wasn't content to just turn Neil Drukmann's fine story into a narrative story form. There was one change about which I had lots of ideas. With encouragement of a few other fans of the game, I decided to take this story in this new direction. I hope that I won't be changing any of the key points and themes but I really, really wanted to make this change.

This is it; the chapter where things diverge from canon! I hope that you like where I'm going to take the story. I promise that things will both change and not change but the nature of the journey has taken a sudden turn!

Finally, I have to apologise for the long delay in posting this chapter. My buffer had run out and I was seriously blocked on how to write the fights in the Capitol Building.

Censor – M – Violence, profanity and description of death and disease

 **Act 1 – Summer**

 **Chapter 8 – Downtown Boston, Part 3 (Over and Under)**

"What do we do now?" Ellie's quiet voice somehow echoed in the grand, blood-splattered entrance hall. It was, Joel felt, a very, very good question and one to which he wished he had an answer.

Joel shook his head, not sure if he was angry at this final setback or if he was feeling sorry for Tess's obvious despair at this outcome. The woman was frantically pawing through the fallen Fireflies' pockets. "What are we doing here, Tess?" he asked quietly.

Tess was still frantically searching the Fireflies' corpses. "God… Maybe… Maybe they had a map or something that'll show us where they were going to take her!"

Suddenly, Joel's last strand of temper frayed and he strode up to Tess. Grabbing her by the arm, he yanked her away from the last Firefly before she was able to start her search. "Damn it! How far are we gonna take this?"

" _As far as it takes!_ " Tess shouted in Joel's face. Yanking her arm out of his grip, she turned to the pale Ellie. "Ellie! Where is this 'lab' Marlene told you about?"

"I… don't know! She never said; only said that it was somewhere out west!"

Joel rubbed his face in fatigue as he watched Tess prowl the grand foyer like a caged lioness. "Tess, what are you doing?" Tess stopped her pacing and turned to look at Joel. "This… this is _not_ us."

Tess moved towards Joel and, despite being much the shorter, somehow seemed to tower over him. "What do you know about 'us'?" she hissed. "What do you know about _me_?"

This time, Joel refused to back down. He folded his arms aggressively. "I know that you're smarter than this."

"Really?" Tess's laugh had an unhealthy edge of hysteria to it. "News flash, Joel: We're a pair of _shitty_ people! It's been that way for a _long time_!"

"NO! We are _Survivors!_ "

"We're a pair of _scavengers_ living off of the rot of this world!"

Suddenly, the argument was broken by a groan. "Is that her…?" The last Firefly had dragged himself into a kneeling position. He was a mess; there was a deep, bite on his right shoulder and his eyes… his eyes were covered by a filmy layer that was glowing dimly white-gold. "Oh jeez…" Ellie whispered. "He's Infected!"

"Shitty luck, brother," Joel remarked levelly; he and Tess had their guns trained on the man.

"Yeah, that's been pretty much the story of my life," the Firefly sighed with a world-weary smile as he slowly clambered onto his feet. He was breathing deeply and with painful hitches; occasionally he shook his head as if he was having trouble thinking. He gestured at Ellie. "Is this her; the Miracle Girl?" Joel considered lying but there was no profit in it. Besides, it was bad karma to lie to a dead man. He contented himself with a single sharp nod. The Firefly nodded, closing his eyes. Suddenly, he shook his head. "No," he hissed. His eyes snapped open again. "I'm done," he said. "You two… You're the last hope, do you understand? You've… You've got to get this girl to the lab! She's the last hope we have of surviving this… of putting this fucking world back together!"

Tess nodded. "Just tell us where to go."

"Now hold on, Tess…"

The Firefly seemed to suddenly realise that the two smugglers weren't members of the insurgent movement. With a sudden, fluid motion, he was at Ellie's side, her right arm in a vice-like grip, making her cry out in surprise and pain. He yanked up the sleeve of her shirt to expose the bite (God knows how he knew it was there). Joel cocked his revolver. "Let the girl go nice and gentle, brother," he murmured dangerously. "We can do this nice or we can do it messy!"

The Firefly either didn't seem to understand the threat or just didn't care. Instead, he tore aside the collar of his shirt, revealing the full horror of his infection point. The entire area was inflamed blood red with black veins spreading out across half of his chest. Jagged lightning bolts of Cordyceps growth could be seen across his skin. The muscles seemed to pulse and writhe as the fungus fought his immune system for control of his limbic nervous system. "Look at this!" the Firefly snarled in an animalistic way. "Not even five hours ago! I'm _already_ more Runner than man!" He gestured savagely at the Ellie's arm. " _Three weeks_! Three weeks and there isn't even a _sign_ of progressing infection! For fuck's sake, it's _healing_! This is _real_! I don't give a shit if you're Fireflies or not! You are _human_! This is _real_ and you're the last ones who can turn this into a future of anything but death!"

Tess took a risk and make a show of moving her gun off of target (earning a look of utter disbelief from Joel) and raising both hands in a gesture of submission and peace. "We believe you. I _swear_ that we're going to help but you've got to tell us where to go!"

The Firefly scowled and seemed to be trying to think. He was starting to shiver wildly and was muttering to himself. The CBI was taking hold. "I… West, the girl said; that's right. We were going to go to the next safe-house and get directions to the lab from there! That's right! The safe house; you need to go to the safe house!"

"Where…" Tess's question was cut off by the roar of powerful turbocharged diesel engines.

Joel looked through one of the windows and saw a pair of four-axle trucks and a pair of HMMWVs with machine-gun turrets roar into the courtyard outside, sending up rooster-tails of floodwater with their high-speed arrival. " _Form up!_ " an NCO was yelling. _"Charlie Squad, get to the other side, block the exits and start working your way back! Bravo Squad, you're on the perimeter! Alpha Squad on me!_ "

"SHIT!" The Firefly was suddenly fully aware and focussed. "They found us…! Probably following the trail of all the guys we've lost over the last 24 hours!" He turned his savage, half-Runner gaze on the two smugglers. He virtually tossed Ellie across the room into Tess's arms with such force that the woman was nearly knocked over. As soon as his arms were unencumbered, he moved with inhuman speed to drop a massive wooden bar across the doors to stop them from opening easily. "Get the girl out of here! I'll buy you as much time as I can for you to get out of here!"

"W… Wait!" Ellie turned to the man, compassion filling her young face. "You want us to just leave you here?"

The Firefly turned back to Ellie and, in the semi-gloom of the entrance hall, the light of Infection was clear in his eyes. He smiled ruefully. "Kid, you have no idea… how _desperately_ I'm… holdin' on to my mind right now. I… I can _feel_ this shit crawlin' through my body and my head; tryin' to take me over… tryin' to snuff out my humanity like it was a _candle_. I won't Turn, kid; I won't even live a minute as one of those… _things_." Ellie struggled a little; she would have rushed over to try to drag the man away from his position in front of the doors but Tess tightened her grip, stopping the girl from escaping. "C'mon, kid," the Firefly said with a ghastly grin, yellowish, pus-like drool dribbling from his chin. "Make this easy for me!"

"Come on," Tess said, dragging Ellie away.

Joel caught the Firefly's eye and gave him a sharp nod of respect that the other man returned in kind. With a surprising level of calm, the man reached into his shirt, tore off his ID necklace and threw it over to Joel, who caught it and followed Tess (and the protesting Ellie) out of the room.

Marcus Collier, Firefly #000088, turned away as he heard the doors into the inner rotunda slam shut. He calmly raised his Mauser carbine in one hand and his 20-gauge auto-mag shot pistol in the other. In a near trance-like state, he began to recite: " _Remember: When you're lost in the darkness, look for the light… Believe in the Fireflies._ "

* * *

"What the _fuck_? I… I can't believe that we did that!" Ellie squeaked as Joel finished loading a few bits of furniture in front of the door.

"QUIET!" Joel snapped. "Tess…"

Tess shot her partner a quelling look. "We need to get out of this death-trap first. We find somewhere safe to hole up and we'll talk then."

Joel considered Tess's words and, after a moment, realised she was right. As a gesture of peace, he handed Tess a half-full magazine of 9mm bullets he'd taken from one of the dead Fireflies. "Okay, we push forwards then."

The three scaled a long and curved flight of stairs. When they reached the top, they entered a mezzanine running around the top of the entrance hall. There was a sudden _crash_ as the soldiers knocked the barricaded doors down with a battering ram. With a hissed curse, Joel ducked down under the line of the balustrade. There was almost immediately a loud, nearly-animal battle cry followed by the boom of some kind of shotgun-like weapon. Moments later there was a rattle of a submachine-gun and cries of pain. There were the cracks of pistol fire, a shriek of barely-human pain and another shotgun blast before another volley of return fire. Then everything fell silent for a moment.

" _Report sergeant_!"

"Tango down sir! Two friendly KIAs and one wounded!"

" _Understood! Continue your sweep! These insurgent filth never travel alone!_ "

" _Yes sir! Phelps and, Del Roy, bring down that door! Get more men in here!_ "

" _Charlie Squad, you are cleared to commence your sweep of the East Wing…_ "

Joel jumped slightly as Tess tapped his arm. He noted her pointing to the door exiting the mezzanine and nodded in understanding and agreement.

The two smugglers, based on long-fixed habit, quickly searched the one-time council meeting chamber of some sort. Ellie's head cocked as they did so; she could hear the crash of a battering ram. "They'll be here soon!"

Joel stuck the box of 12-gauge shotgun shells she'd found under the speaker's lectern into her pack; even though he didn't have the appropriate weapon for them, they were worth a bit for barter. He looked over at his partner, who had just finished loading her recently-acquired 9mm ammo into her spare magazine. "Tess! Got a way out?"

"Yeah, but you won't like it." She was right, Joel didn't. There was a hole in the left-hand wall; maybe a consequence of the carpet bombing or maybe some relic of the post-Outbreak anarchy. It was matched by a similar wound in the wall of the adjacent wing of the building. It was a heart-stopping four-foot jump, nine feet over the pavement surround of the building.

They all made it, although Joel felt his trailing foot land on empty air for a moment before he tumbled forwards and barely caught himself. _Getting' too old for this shit,_ he thought before moving onwards.

At the far end of this room (a waiting area by the looks of things) was a dead Firefly bearing a treasure. Joel picked up the bolt-action 308-Magnum hunting rifle loosely cradled in the dead man's arms. The weapon was in good order although it was probably recently acquired. The FEDRA-mandated clip-blocking metal plate was still in place, meaning that the rifle had to be manually loaded between shots. Joel pulled back the bolt, catching the loaded bullet as it ejected. A quick look confirmed that the barrel was clear and the sights were still good. He reloaded the weapon.

Tess hissed a warning. "Joel! Soldiers at the other end of the hall!"

Like a lot of the Capitol Building, the two-level gallery was given over to exhibitions about the past of Massachusetts. The display cases were mostly broken and empty, anything of value long since taken by FEDRA or looted by desperate people. Now, as Joel crouched by the entrance, he saw a group of at least five soldiers in their black anti-riot gear moving in and beginning to sweep the gallery.

"What do we do, Joel?" Ellie whispered.

"You stay close to me," he said. He then turned to Tess and handed her the rifle. She didn't look too happy, which didn't surprise him – he doubted she was too good with long-range weapons, having been a city girl all her life. "Tess, you hang back and make sure no-one gets behind us." Joel scowled at the approaching soldiers. "I've got this."

Joel crouched down behind a box covered with a dust-sheet, probably something important and destined for evacuation that was now just left to rot away. At the other end of the gallery, one soldier took up a guard position behind another set of packing crates, one stopped a short-way down its length to cover their colleagues and the rest moved into side-corridors to Joel's left.

Joel ghosted between cover, getting closer and closer to the doorway into the room to the left. He waited for the nearest soldier to enter and then sneaked in behind him. Joel came up close behind the solder, ultra-aware of every noise being made. Somehow, Joel managed to get close enough to suddenly jump up, clap a hand over the man's mouth under his helmet's Lexan faceplate and crush his windpipe with his other hand. The soldier struggled for a few moments before falling still.

" _Holy shit…!_ " Ellie muttered behind him. Joel gestured for silence. Staying low and silent, Joel went through the next door to the left into a longer gallery, running past the side corridor, beyond which was a room that seemed to extend all the way along the side corridor into the main gallery. Joel peeked around the corner and saw a soldier slowly working his way towards them down the corridor, carefully sweeping around him with his Enforcer semi-auto pistol. Beyond him was another soldier, who was standing in the main gallery and covering his colleague's advance.

Joel considered what to do next for a moment. Then he darted back to the door through which he had entered and through the middle display room to the doorway back to the main gallery. He tossed a bottle he'd found on the floor randomly towards the exit to the main stairs. The sound of breaking glass caught everyone's attention. " _Shit! What was that?_ " he heard one of the soldiers blurt out. Joel sneak-sprinted as best as he could down to the other end of the room, grabbing Ellie by the collar as he passed her and yanking her after him.

The room Joel entered was dark and had a huge, ponderous desk in the centre that Joel thought may have once been the seat of someone important. A torch beam shone through the door out into the side corridor and Joel ducked down behind the desk. " _Where are you motherfucker…?_ " a woman's voice muttered as a soldier with an Enforcer with an under-barrel Maglite entered the room. She swept the weapon around. " _Clear!_ " she called before turning her back. That was a fatal move. Joel jumped the desk, knocking various bits of desk furniture to the floor and shoulder-charged the soldier into the wall. She shrieked in pain as he drove his shiv into the join of her neck and head. Letting his victim fall as he yanked out his shiv, Joel grabbed his revolver out of his waistband as urgent footsteps came from the way he and Ellie had just come.

A soldier rounded the corner and tried to get his gun on target but Joel was braced and ready. The first two 357-Magnum rounds shattered the soldier's faceplate and the third slammed into his face, exploding his head like a ripe melon.

In the tight confines of the office, the gunfire was deafening, so Joel didn't hear Tess send a rifle round towards the soldier guarding the exit from the gallery before running for the side room. Just before a hail of returned fire chewed the wall by the door she ducked through into a spray of splinters and plaster dust.

The sudden burst of action seemed to break the soldiers' discipline and the one standing opposite the side corridor charged down it to intercept Tess. A dumb move as he walked right into her sights. Joel heard the rapid series of pops as she emptied her Walther into the man. Even with his body armour, that number of shots chewed through the Kevlar and into his chest, sending him down.

A sudden silence fell. Ellie was crouched near Joel behind the desk with her hands pressed over her ears. He touched the girl's shoulder; she looked up with a start but nodded in relief when he gestured towards the door out into the side corridor. The two emerged just as a frazzled-looking Tess appeared at the far end of the corridor, reloading her Walther.

Silently, the woman handed the rifle and its remaining ammo back over to Joel, who quickly reloaded. Looking around the corner, he saw the final soldier, hunkered down behind a row of packing crates. Joel ducked back just before a 357-Magnum round tore a fist-sized chunk out of the corner of the wall.

Long years of co-operation had taught Tess and Joel teamwork. The woman pulled a brick out of her backpack and lofted it across the gallery. It struck the wooden balustrade of the upper level with a loud _crack_ , drawing the soldier's attention up and to the left. Joel turned the corner and sent three rounds from his revolver towards the soldier's head, at least two clipping his helmet and staggering him.

With no time to reload, Joel snatched his club off of its strap and charged the dazed soldier. The first impact exploded the already-shattered Lexan of the faceplate. Joel put his boot in the man's chest and pushed, knocking him on his back. Joel stepped forwards, pushing the man flat with a foot on his chest and drove a second blow into the man's unprotected face, which collapsed in a spray of bone and blood.

The two smugglers and their charge gathered around the corpse of their last fallen foe as Joel completed the laborious task of reloading the rifle. "How do we get out of here?" Ellie murmured. In reply, Joel jerked his head towards the stairs.

"There's bound to be more of them down there and we're running low on ammo," Tess remarked darkly.

"It's the only way; we need to get downstairs and out the far entrance of the building." He shot Tess and Ellie a grim smile that communicated a confidence he didn't feel. "We'll just do it _quiet_ , this time!"

* * *

The way down to the lower floor wasn't easy. One flight of the wooden staircase had succumbed to neglect and rot and had just simply collapsed. The only good thing to say about it was that one of the more intact 2x4s served to give Tess a close-quarters weapon. Joel slowly closed his revolver's cylinder after loading his last 357-Magnum bullets.

The three crouched in the doorway leading into a big hall, beyond which… "That's the way out," Joel declared quietly. "Tess, stay with Ellie and both of you stay back in cover. We don't know how many of them there are through there."

Joel didn't like the odds and he didn't like the way that there was practically no cover except a few display cases. The only thing working on his side was the relatively low light level. As Joel peeked over the top of the display cases, he could see at least one soldier standing a couple of rooms away in the exit from the building, looking very alert. "They have to come through here to get out!" Joel heard someone call out. "Move forwards; comb the area!"

The big Texan looked over to his travelling companions and made a savage gesture for them to come over. He then quickly crouch-walked over to the further of the two corridors through to the entrance area. The corridor was dark and narrow; perfect for ambush and Joel intended to use it.

In the near-darkness, Joel had to try to 'see' with his ears as a soldier nearly-silently worked his way down the corridor. "We're gonna get you…" the soldier murmured as he walked past the cabinet Joel was crouched behind. The man never realised he was in danger until the smuggler's club was suddenly slid across his throat, yanking him back and crushing his windpipe until the final darkness fell.

" _Report!_ " a voice crackled over the soldier's radio.

" _South corridor clear!_ "

" _North corridor report!_ " Naturally, the recently-choked man didn't reply. " _North corridor report! Shit! Converge on the north corridor!_ "

Another soldier jogged in; in the darkness, he tripped over the corpse Joel had just put onto the floor. " _Shit_! Man down! Man…!" Joel kicked at the man's face as hard as he could, feeling bone and tooth give way as his boot connected with the man's jaw. Grabbing the solder by the back of the head, he drove his forehead into the sharp corner of the cabinet, finishing the matter.

" _Freeze Fu_ … UGH!" Joel whirled to see another soldier in the entrance from the rear gallery slump as Tess yanked her butterfly knife out of his throat. Tess shot Joel a slightly mocking smile before gesturing Ellie to go into the corridor.

Any hope of stealth was now lost. Joel could hear the urgent debate of the surviving soldiers in the entrance hall's about the next move after the loss of their colleagues further into the building. Finally, an officer, probably the guy who led the assault on the other end of the building, took charge over the radio, telling them to hold the exit and that he was bringing reinforcements along the upper level.

With a grimace, Joel led the way into a cross corridor, dividing the building and crossing over three entrances to the main entrance foyer ahead. Joel slowly worked his way down, quickly ducking across every doorway until he reached the last entrance way. Just across the way, he could see the entrance into a side room that, hopefully, might get them up to the end of the building whilst staying out of the last soldiers' lines of sight.

Joel paused, listening to the guards' tense conversation. "Okay, stay sharp guys; there are at least three of them left!"

"I heard one of them was a kid!"

"Does that matter? You heard the report! There are five dead and one wounded upstairs!"

"Yeah! Add onto that those three who just went quiet now!"

" _Jesus_! Well, after today, this Firefly bullshit will be behind us!"

Joel considered his options. One guard was standing right in front of the doors out onto the street; two others were in flanking positions, moving around restlessly.

"Fuck this! I'm not waiting for those shits to think of a way to pick us off! Talbot, sweep the cross-corridor! Harmon, take another look through the library!"

They were out of time. Practically on all fours, Joel snuck behind a set of sofas under dust covers to the side door that Joel bet was the 'library'. Indeed, there were book cases dividing the room in two along its length but Joel saw a soldier (not wearing armour for some reason, possibly someone hurriedly taken from a police patrol) walk behind one as he swept the room. Joel dived into cover behind the far bookcase as Tess and Ellie pressed up against the other. Joel waited as the soldier came out into the open in between the two cases. He caught Tess's eyes and saw that his partner had this one. Tess slid like a snake around the corner of the book case and swung her 2x4 like a pro, catching the man on the nape of the neck. As he measured his length on the floor, Tess sprang, pushing him flat with her left boot and brought her bludgeon down on the back of his head, caving in his skull.

Joel would later kick himself for watching Tess in action rather than the door. As it was, the first warning he had of trouble was Ellie's sudden gasp and her lightning-fast dive for the wall with the doors as another guard appeared in the doorway through which they'd entered. Joel lunged for the same wall but, fortunately for him (but less so for Tess), she was in full view as the guard stepped through the arch, distracting him from looking for anyone else. The woman backpedalled behind a bookcase barely in time to avoid a brace of shots from the guard's revolver. "Son of a bitch! Man down! Get back here you _fucking c_ …!"

There was no time to be subtle. As the soldier charged into the room, Joel lunged towards him from behind, clapping a hand over the man's mouth and drove his shiv into the man's throat. The abused blade snapped but it had done its job as the man's corpse sunk lifelessly to the ground.

"Talbot! Harmon! Talk to me! Sound off!" The last guard was now fully alert. "Shit! Lieutenant! I'm the last one left here!" There was a crackle of radio traffic. "Copy that! Shit! _Shit_!"

Joel finished scavenging bullet from the two soldiers' revolvers, his mind racing. The door opposite the exit offered some cover but Joel wanted to avoid a face-to-face gunfight with a man who had armour. He turned to Tess, who was holding a bright. He made a jerking gesture with her chin. She went to the other door and tossed the brick across the room.

With a curse, the soldier's attention jerked towards the sound. Joel leant around the corner and sent two shots from his revolver towards the man's head. His helmet took the first shell, staggering him but the second struck the Lexan faceplate, shattering it. The man got off a shot that came so close to Joel's head that he _heard_ it zip by. The distraction made Joel's third shot hit the man's throat armour. Joel corrected his aim. The fourth shot buried itself into the forehead of the man's armour but the fifth landed between his eyes, sending him down.

" _Gunshots!_ "

" _By pairs! Go! Go! Shoot anything that's fucking standing up_!"

Tess's eyes went wide as she heard the cries and racing boots coming from the interior of the building. She pushed Ellie past Joel towards the exit. "Go! Get moving!"

Joel sprinted after his two travelling companions. "Low! Stay low!" he snapped as he charged down the entrance stairs in their wake. The three hurdled over a concrete lane divider in the knee-deep water as they heard urgent cries of "Man down! Man down!" and "After them!" from inside.

Ellie pointed frantically ahead of her "Look! Stairs!"

An entrance to the subway! "Get going!" Joel roared. "Get in there! Don't look back!"

" _There they are!_ " Joel heard someone shout behind him. He heard the 'crack' of pistol fire and a shot kicked up a spray of water to the left. Another ricocheted loudly off of the entrance to the stairwell. " _They're heading into the subway! Shoot them!_ " There was a roar of a turbocharged diesel engine and the sound of a light machinegun firing.

Joel followed Tess and Ellie down the stairs, jumping the first few flights that had been drilled away in an attempt to stop Infected using the subway system as an underground pedestrian route though the city. He charged towards the bottom and turned a blind corner just in time as a hail of 22-calibre NATO rifle bullets turned a turnstile to his left into flying steel confetti. "Goddamn it!"

"They're following us!" Ellie's shriek was just this side of hysterical.

"No _shit_ , you little snot!" Tess yelled back. "Keep running!"

The three dived down the corridor towards the platform and Tess suddenly stopped dead, practically throwing herself onto her back to do so; the corridor ahead was filled with… "Spores! Ellie! Wait!" The girl disappeared into the subtly glowing gold miasma. "Shit!"

" _They're heading for the platforms! Seal off the exit and start sweeping towards them!_ " Joel shot Tess a grim look as they pulled on their gas masks and dove into the spore cloud. There was no time to do cross-checks; they'd just have to trust that their luck might suddenly turn _good_ for once.

Combined with the slight dulling effect of the gas masks' eye-pieces, the spores gave everything a spooky, indistinct feel. It was like stepping into a bank of thick, toxic smoke that you only _wish_ would kill you.

As she and Joel entered the platform area Tess gasped in as a surprisingly strong hand suddenly grabbed her wrist and dragged her down into cover behind an L-shaped pair of benches.

* * *

" _No target; I repeat, no target_."

A pause and then a reply: " _Copy that; all exits are covered. Sweep the platform areas and then hold position and wait until we sweep in to meet you_."

" _Roger that_."

Ellie gestured towards the train sitting rusting into oblivion a little further down the platform. "As far as I can tell, there's just the two soldiers; over there!" she whispered.

Joel had other things on his mind as he looked into the girl's unprotected and remarkably untroubled face. She showed no sign of difficulty breathing and there was none of the wracking cough that people being attacked by spores suffered. "How are you _breathing_ in this shit?" he muttered.

The girl shot him a level look, a slightly mocking smile touching her lips. "Immune, remember? See, I wasn't lying to you!"

Joel shot Tess a look. It was hard to see his partner's eyes through the eyepieces of her gas mask but Joel had the feeling that she'd look vindicated. He couldn't blame her. This _was_ for real!

Suddenly a third soldier jogged past from the way they came, making all three duck down. "Any sign?" one of the soldiers at the far end of the platform called out hopefully.

"Nothing! Place is deserted."

"Fuck! This place feels like fuckin' Clicker Central Station!" Joel couldn't blame the soldier for that opinion. There were huge sporocarps growths in various parts of the walls and ceilings, so old that no sign of their former hosts were visible. Frankly, the place didn't feel like anything made by man anymore but something that had _grown_ as part of a very, very alien world.

The soldier in charge clearly wasn't planning on stretching this out any longer. "Look, search the waiting area and then let's get the fuck out of here before something hungry comes over for a bite to eat!"

Joel frowned and looked over at Tess. The woman nodded and then crouch-walked off towards the far end of the waiting area. Meanwhile, Joel hunkered down lower as a soldier walked closer and closer. As he turned the corner to look behind the benches, he was confronted by the sight of Joel and Ellie. "What the…?" was as far as he got as Joel's powerful hands closed around his head and drove his forehead against the corner of one of the benches. There was a crunch of shattering bone.

To the left, Joel caught movement out of the corner of his eye as Tess sprang out of cover and carved open the other soldier's throat with her knife.

 _One left_. Joel snuck forwards as best as he could as the third and last soldier jumped off of the front of the last train car and began to work his way up along the track. The way ahead was blocked by partially-collapsed tunnels and abandoned trains. Pulling out his club, Joel walked in the man's wake, carefully matching the man's pace so that there was no sound betraying his presence.

"Shit, this place gives me the creeps…" the soldier was muttering to himself. "Just… just get this shit done and you'll be out of here before you know it!"

Joel caught up with the man and delivered a mighty overhand swing with his club to the side of the man's helmet. Hardly fatal but it staggered him and left him wide open to the second blow to the centre of his gas mask-covered face. The soldier went out flat at Joel's feet and the big man drove his club down with an overhead swing into the covered face. There was a loud _crunch_ , the head broke off of Joel's club and the man stopped moving.

Joel stood in the light streaming down from a ventilation aperture above, listening to the sound of frogs and other pond life chirping. His eye caught the light as Tess snapped on her torch and led Ellie over to the platform edge. "The other entrance tunnel's blocked," Joel's partner reported. "We know there's military back the way we came, so the only way out is forwards." She gestured to the trains blocking the tracks heading in the other direction.

* * *

With a gasp, Joel surfaced on the far side of the tangle of train cars in the nearly-totally flooded tunnel. The track bed was now flooded up to what would be platform height and even above it in some places. Given Ellie's lack of any ability to swim, it was making it difficult to make progress down the tunnels. "Tess? Ellie?"

"We're here!" Ellie appeared around the far corner of one of the train cars along with Tess both splashing loudly through the ankle-depth water. "There was a walk-way we were able to use!" Joel hauled himself onto the engineering catwalk that had just saved them the trouble of figuring how to get the girl through the flooded section of tunnel.

"Y'know," Tess murmured, "I just about remembering riding on this line when my elementary school class visited the Capitol Building. Seems like a whole different lifetime…" Joel knew that feeling a bit too well for his own comfort but didn't feel the need to say as much. There seemed little point mourning a world dead and gone so long now that, to someone like Ellie, it was little more than archaeology. He and Tess had to focus on survival. He guessed that he'd also have to think up something to do with Ellie. Speaking of which, where was she…?

"Hey guys!" Ellie's voice echoed from further along the catwalk, where it was finally above water level. "Check this out: Dried dead guy!"

Indeed it was; not Infected either. Joel and Tess briefly assessed the body with professional eyes. Joel found a note lying beside the corpse. Joel frowned and wondered what the hell had happened here. Someone trying to get into the zone – hardly old news – but the contact had never turned up! There was something about that name that rang a bell too but he couldn't quite put a finger on it.

"She's not leaving us, is she?" Ellie sounded nervous. Joel looked up. The corpse had been at the entrance to a side-tunnel that extended into an entirely-flooded depth. Tess had just dived into the tunnels and was diving down into its depths. He watched as the beam of his partner's torch disappeared from sight. "Tess is just checking it for a way out."

"Yeah, but I can't swim, remember? If the way out is down there… Well, how do I get through there?"

"Can you hold your breath?"

"Uh… yeah?"

"Then you focus on that and we focus on towing your dead-weight ass through the tunnels." Joel didn't expect it but that actually earned a snort of laughter from the girl. Maybe she wasn't such a whiner after all?

Ellie went back to the corpse and quickly came up trumps. She stood up, a small plastic cylinder in her hands. "I wonder if…" a bright beam shot out of the Maglite's side-mounted illuminator; Ellie swung the torch beam around." Cool! It works!"

Joel was just finishing attaching the torch to one of the straps of Ellie's backpack when Tess appeared out of the water. "Find anything?"

"Just the last resting place of Shiyad, Jiang, Firefly #000178. Those guys get everywhere and tend to be dead when we find them." Tess looked over at Ellie and noted the distress on the girl's face. She considered an apology but she guessed that Ellie had to get used to the idea that she wasn't ever seeing Marlene again. She turned back to Joel. "I also found some of those bits and pieces you collect for your tinkering," she added, dropping a bag of parts into Joel's hands.

The three companions continued to the end of the maintenance catwalk that extended into a train station. Park Street Station, as mentioned in that smuggler's note. Joel vaguely wondered if they'd find the corpse of the 'Frank' for whom the other guy had somehow died waiting. "The exit is over there," Tess remarked. "How do we get the girl over to the other side?"

Joel considered that for a moment then saw something further up the flooded track-bed. "Hold on, I got somethin'." Joel jumped into the water and, with powerful strokes, swam over to a wooden cargo pallet that was bobbing in the waters. He manoeuvred it around and pushed it over to the platform edge and gestured to it.

"You're… fucking me?" Ellie squeaked.

"Hey, you're getting over the easy way," Tess remarked with an insolent shrug before jumping into the cold, filthy water.

Gingerly, Ellie boarded her makeshift conveyance and hung on for dear life as Joel began to manoeuvre it over to the other side. Ellie practically leapt off it onto the relatively secure ground of the platform. "Joel, the platform is too slick!" Tess called out. "I can't get leverage to haul myself up!" She was right; this could be a problem.

"Hey! There's a ladder!" Ellie called out.

Joel nodded in approval; the girl was showing the sense she needed to survive. "Good, tip it up and lower it in end first!"

Within a few moments both smugglers were out of the water. After a pause whilst Tess wrung out her dripping hair, the three proceeded past a corpse that had been turned into a sporocarps farm in a blind corner, up a set of partially demolished stairs up into the bright, open, spore-free air.

* * *

"Tess, we need to talk." Tess looked up at Joel. The three travellers were taking stock, eating some rations and making sure nothing had been lost or damaged during the log sojourn in the tunnels. Tess stuck her Police Special into her waistband and looked at her partner. "We need to decide where we're going next," Joel continued.

"We're going to Tommy's." Tess declared. "He used to run with the Fireflies. He'll know where we need to take the girl."

Joel's hand cut through the air like a sword. "No, you listen to me!" Tess raised her eyebrows in surprise. "Tess, maybe this is real but you're foolin' yourself if you think that whatever shit flowing around in that girl's body is enough to fix the world! Truth told…" he sighed. "Truth told, I don't think anything can. Now, the last time I talked to Bill, he told me that there are a few independent quarantine zones down Georgia way or the Carolinas that ain't beholden to no one – FEDRA or Firefly. If we can get into them, there won't be any risk of anyone finding the girl is Infected – they don't have the tech to discover shit like that. I figure that it won't take us long to set up a network and contacts in a place like…"

"JOEL!" Tess's shout was loud enough to attract Ellie's attention. "Joel, listen to me, this is bigger than us and what's convenient for us, okay? I don't give a shit if you don't want to face up to Tommy or whatever it is that's your reason for being so fucking stubborn about this!" Joel folded his arms and stood tall in a defiant manner. Tess stepped up to him and got into his personal space. "Joel…!" her voice and the look in her eyes was pleading and desperate. She held out her hands as if she were cradling something… her heart maybe? "Joel, this… whatever this is between us…? Fuck it, it must mean something to you? It must make you feel some kind of obligation?" There were tears in her eyes! Joel couldn't _remember_ the last time Tess cried in his presence…! Hell, he wasn't sure that it had even ever _happened_! "Joel, I want all of this… all this _shit_ that is my life to _mean_ something! I don't want my gravestone to have to read: 'Theresa St Clair – She was a selfish bitch who smuggled shit!'"

Joel sucked in a deep, long breath and looked away, unable to confront the plea in her eyes. "This is your crusade, Tess, not mine."

"Joel… I will do this on my own if that's what it takes but, for _God's sake_ … please don't make me beg but I _will_ if I have to!" The woman sucked in a sob. "Please, if you've ever held me dear in any way, _help me_!"

" _Enough_!" Tess jumped at Joel's soft but hard tone. "The thing is…! _Shit_. Okay. I'll do this much; I owe you that much. I'll get you and the girl to Tommy but _not one fucking step further,_ Tess!"

Utterly to the big man's surprise, his partner placed a gentle kiss on his lips. "Thank you!" Damn...! First tears and now the most genuine smile he'd ever seen! Seems like it was a day for firsts when it came to Tess!

"Um… Joel…?" Joel turned to look at a very, very nervous and shame-faced Ellie standing right behind him. "Look… I… I couldn't help but overhear. I… It's probably suicide but give me a gun and some ammo and I'll head off on my own to look for the Fireflies and you can go back to the Zone! I don't want to be the cause of problems between you and Tess…!"

Joel snapped Ellie a stern look making the girl spring back a pace. "Okay, let's get one thing straight. What is between me and Tess is between me and Tess. It is none of your damn business to worry about, try to 'fix' or…" the big man shook his head. "Actually, let's just do a deal. Let's keep each other's personal lives out of this trip, yeah?

"Secondly, as of now, Tess and I are the last two living people on Earth who you tell about your 'condition', no matter what happens. Best you can hope for is that someone will think you're insane! Worst case, they kill you on the spot!

"Lastly, if you thought the shit we went through to get this far is bad, it's nothing compared to what's waiting for us out there. You do what I say, when I say it. We clear on that?" Ellie nodded. "I want to hear it, girl."

Ellie sighed in a resentful and long-suffering way. "What you say goes."

"Good."

"You two finished your bonding moment?" Tess teased as she walked back over, stoppering a water bottle as she did so. "Joel, we're in your territory now. My knowledge pretty much ends when we're more than four hours' walk from the QZ. Where do we go?"

Joel already had decided that. "No matter where we're ultimately going, we need to see Bill. Tommy's camp is damn near twenty-five hundred miles from here and the East Coast is lousy with bandit clans. If we want to maximise our chances, we're going to need fast transport. Bill can contrapt almost anything out of parts. Even if he don't have a working car, he can find one or help us build one."

"To Bill's place then," Tess declared and then paused. "You know where that is, right?"

"A few miles north; it's going to be a tough march to get there before sunset and we _want_ to do that. Infected roam the countryside at night and they're not the worst things that wander around out there."

Joel turned in the indicated direction and began to walk. He turned back to the woman and girl who were the catalysts for this sudden change in his life. "Let's get a move on."

 _To be continued…_


End file.
